Moonis Elahi attacks government over smog and Imran Khan's health

PTI leader and former federal minister Chaudhry Moonis Elahi accused the government of failing to curb Punjab's smog for a third consecutive year and questioned the secrecy around Imran Khan's health after the PTI founder was moved to PIMS Hospital.

In a statement posted on X, Elahi said the whole province was in the grip of poisonous and life-threatening smog and that hospital wards were packed with patients suffering from respiratory and throat ailments. He said the government had completely failed to control pollution for a third year running and that the much-publicised blasts from the smog gun introduced to fight the crisis had proved a complete flop.

Elahi, who has been living outside Pakistan, described the government as a product of "47 number tricks" and compared it to a monkey that became king through manipulation and then jumped from one tree to another when people brought it their real problems.

"Reset or reboot the political system as much as you like; Imran Khan has upset you all so much that now no system is working properly," he said.

He also addressed the split within his own family's politics, saying the children of Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain were voicing resentment because, after alleged rigging in the general elections, the children of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had kept all powers and ministries for themselves. Had the PML-N or the present government handed them ministries too, he said, they would have forgotten their grievances and be sitting happily today.

On Imran Khan, Elahi asked why the PTI founder had been shifted to PIMS Hospital suddenly and under cover of darkness. He said Khan's health had been badly affected by prolonged solitary confinement, that he had developed vision problems and was now also suffering from dangerously high blood pressure. He asked why Khan's family, his personal doctors and the public were being kept in the dark about his deteriorating health.

Separately, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja said on a television programme, according to Pakistan Today, that the party's founder was not prepared to give a "blank cheque" on the proposed 28th Constitutional Amendment and that his position had been conveyed to the party leadership. Raja said no direct talks had been held with the PTI for its support in passage of the amendment in exchange for political relief.

"If someone has to talk over the issue, they should talk to the PTI's founder," he said.

Raja alleged that decision-makers were attempting to feed one-sided information to Khan to secure decisions in their favour. He said the referendum move appeared aimed at restricting a provincial assembly's authority and that the amendment would clip the powers of the provincial legislature. He also raised reservations about a meeting between two lawyers and Khan in jail, suggesting it appeared to have been arranged to achieve certain political objectives.