March 26 : Pakistan\u2019s embattled former Prime Minister Imran Khan addressed tens of thousands of his supporters in the eastern city of Lahore late Saturday, renewing allegations that the powerful military\u2019s meddling in politics pushed the country to the brink of an economic disaster and calling for early elections.<\/p>\n

The 70-year-old leader of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party spoke from a bulletproof container, the first time he has done so since he was shot at and wounded last November while leading an anti-government rally, his aides said.<\/p>\n

The turnout was massive despite government attempts to block access to the venue by placing shipping containers at crucial entry and exit routes of the city. The provincial government cited terrorism threats for beefing security and blocking \u201ccertain routes\u201d in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, Pakistan\u2019s most populous.<\/p>\n

Khan was removed from power in April in a no-confidence vote, but recent polls suggest he remains the country\u2019s most popular political leader. He accused the recently retired Pakistani military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, of orchestrating his ouster in collaboration with his successor, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and the United States, charges Washington and Islamabad have rejected.<\/p>\n

In his speech Saturday, Khan alleged that the Pakistani military is behind a crackdown on his party and trying to get him disqualified from politics, fearing he would sweep national elections scheduled for later this year. ‘I know you have decided you wouldn\u2019t allow Imran Khan back in power. That\u2019s fine with me. But do you have a plan or know how to get the country out of the current crisis?’ Khan asked at the rally Saturday.<\/p>\n

Khan maintains the government has filed more than 100 cases against him, including corruption, terrorism, blasphemy, and sedition charges, to keep him from leading his party\u2019s election campaign. Khan denies all the allegations saying they are politically motivated. Government officials say the number of legal cases against Khan is close to 40.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 26 : Pakistan\u2019s embattled former Prime Minister Imran Khan addressed tens of thousands of his supporters in the eastern city of Lahore late Saturday, renewing allegations that the powerful military\u2019s meddling in politics pushed the country to the brink of an economic disaster and calling for early elections. The 70-year-old leader of the opposition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-news","category-world","authors-click-nepal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicknepal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}