No defeat if you don't give up, PM says on party's foundation day

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan in his address Sunday on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his founded party Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) said a nation cannot be destroyed with a dearth of resources, or even if you flatten them with bombs and tear them apart with wars but it is destroyed if corruption takes roots in it, ARY News reported.

He classified corruption in two categories: one of which he said is at the grassroots committed by clerical staff at the public offices and patwaris hassling people, the other he said, was committed at the top level by the ministers and even the prime minister himself.

It is the latter form of corruption that really drowns the nations as the entire country would succumb to heaps of debts acquired by those in power, the PM said.

He established his argument by giving examples of all the third-world’s developing nations that they too were, are, marred by the same menace of corruption by their ruling class and the same was the case with our country, which prompted us to found a party based on this one cornerstone to end corruption from the ruling class.

We named our party after justice, the PM said. “When there is justice, there cannot be any instance of corruption.”

“Justice means the supremacy of law, meaning the weak and the mighty are equal before the law”.

He said this was the only motivation behind the endeavour we had set out on 25 years ago today, adding that to a man like him who already had everything, including fame and money, even before choosing to be in politics was to seek justice, unlike others who had nothing before sliding into politics.

The first 15 years of this struggle were the most gruelling and many of our partners and friends cut off from us saying they were being ridiculed due to the far fetched ideas proposed by the party that had secured no seat, he said.

In the first election we fielded our people we won no seats but “those don’t give up hope, no one can really defeat them”, the PM noted.