DGI Was Also Heavily Involved During PTI Govt, Not Just Gen Bajwa: Zulfi Bukhari

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2023-04-04T10:30:37+05:00 News Desk
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Syed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari, aka Zulfi Bukhari, has said that not only former army chief General (retired) Qamar Javed Bajwa but then-DGI were also involved in influencing the decisions of their cabinet.

While giving an interview to a web channel, WE News, he said that the PTI government had good working relations with the establishment and that decisions were taken mutually during their tenure. However, he said that overdependence on any institution can cause harm, and the same thing happened to their government.

Bukhari said, "We are a political force, and we are the ones who are supposed to take decisions politically." "I cannot decide how to guard the borders; similarly, the establishment doesn’t know how to govern the country," he added.

He clarified that not only General (retired) Bajwa but the top 2-3 officers of the army were involved in influencing the decisions of the cabinet, adding that DGI had more influence than all. He further added that this practice was wrong and PTI suffered a loss due to it.

"We made mistakes since it was our first term, but our overall performance was good," he insisted. He said that his party made blunders in its selection of bureaucracy, and that was the biggest failure.

He further admitted that PTI failed badly in fulfilling the promise of accountability, and he held Mirza Shahzad Akbar, the former special assistant to the former prime minister on accountability, responsible for that. He alleged that Akbar was an incapable person and that he was pursuing his personal agenda.

Zulfi Bukhari said that currently he is not in contact with the establishment. He said that the army is the biggest reality, and during the last two years, a new reality has emerged in the shape of the PTI, adding that there is a need for both realities to sit down at a table for talks for the sake of the country.

He said that PTI could not run the country even after winning elections if it didn’t have coordination with the army. He urged Imran Khan and the army to sit at a table for dialogue.

"How can the army become neutral suddenly since it has been involved in politics for the last 70 years,"? he questioned. He suggested that the army should press the ‘reset’ button, conduct elections, and then dissociate itself from politics.

He claimed that the minus-Imran strategy is being implemented and efforts are being made to dissolve the PTI. He added that it should be accepted that the PTI is the biggest national grass-roots party in the country.

While responding to a question about former first lady Bushra Bibi’s close friend Farah Khan aka Farah Gogi's alleged corruption and influence in Punjab, he said that he had never seen any such thing with his eyes and that he had also just heard about all that.
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