• Will meet PTI founder as soon as I return to Pakistan: Marwat.
• PTI firebrand says Fawad was in "cohort" with ex-army chief Bajwa.
• "People like them fled when party was in need," says politician. 
  

LONDON: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) firebrand leader Sher Afzal Marwat has fired a fresh salvo against former party member Fawad Chaudhry, saying that PTI founder Imran Khan had told him the former federal minister's "shady" role in the regime change operation.

"The PTI founder himself has told me that Fawad's role in the regime change operation was 'suspicious'," Marwat said, adding that according to the incarcerated party founder, Fawad was in "cohort" with then-army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Marwat's latest remarks come in response to Fawad being overtly critical of the PTI's current leadership, terming them as a hurdle in the incarcerated former premier and other leaders' release from jail due to a lack of political strategy.

Owing to the prevailing internal turmoil within the party with leaders often openly engaging in public tit-for-tat verbal spats, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and senior leader Asad Qasier had reached out to Fawad, urging him to keep quiet for the time being and not criticise the PTI leadership.

Even Khan has accepted grouping within the PTI and is set to meet "both factions" today in Adia jail.

Earlier this week, party's Information Secretary Raoof Hasan, while speaking on Geo News' programme "Capital Talk" said that Fawad had been expelled from PTI after he joined another party, so he had no right to comment on the party.

Hasan had also said that some "touts" were running a narrative against the top PTI leadership on social media, adding "There is no impression in the PTI that those who left the party should be brought back".

Continuing, Marwat — the PTI MNA — said that the claim Fawad had been making that he joined Jahangir Tareen and Aleem Khan's group on Khan's orders, was in fact a big lie.

The remarks refer to the fact that the ex-minister was spotted at a launching ceremony of the Istihkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) in June last year.

The party was launched by Tareen and Aleem and largely comprised PTI deserters who had left the party after the infamous May 9 riots — which saw military installations being targeted — and the resulting crackdown on PTI leaders and workers.

Stressing that the PTI looks at the former member's role with "suspicion", Marwat said: "He [Fawad] was working against the party's interests and also serving as a messenger for conveying messages to General Bajwa."

"People like them fled when the party was in need," he added.

It is to be noted that former prime minister Khan, ever since his ouster from the office via a vote of no-confidence in April 2022, has time again accused Gen Bajwa of being behind the "regime change" move that led to his government's removal.

Khan had earlier blamed the United States for overthrowing his PTI administration.

Undermining Fawad's legal woes, Marwat said that cases lodged against the former PTI member were, in fact, a "mere eyewash".

"He was only arrested as it has [served] as a pretext for a way back into the former ruling party," said the outspoken PTI leader. "If he  [Fawad] comes back into the party then what is the fault of the rest [who left]," he added.

"It is also true that Fawad spent his days behind bars in VIP jails as he had a 'setting'," Marwat said, adding that the former PTI member was an un-invited guest who was speaking against the party.

Revealing that the PTI founder has summoned him for a meeting, the politician said that he would meet Khan as soon he gets back to Pakistan.

"I will meet the PTI founder by July 15 or 16," Marwat said, who is in Britain these days.