As Imran Khan’s PTI faces crackdown, a new party of deserters is taking shape Premium

The Istihkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) was launched earlier this month by Jahangir Khan Tareen (JKT), a former key member of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and Abdul Aleem Khan, another former close aide of Mr. Khan.

The Istihkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) was launched earlier this month by Jahangir Khan Tareen (JKT), a former key member of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and Abdul Aleem Khan, another former close aide of Mr. Khan. “Dead on arrival” is how the PTI’s Shah Mehmood Qureshi dismissed the newly launched party.

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Mr. Tareen was a kingmaker in 2018 when he delivered ‘independents’ for the PTI post-elections so that it could form government in Punjab. But after falling out with Mr. Khan around 2019-20, Mr. Tareen became politically isolated for a while until the vote of no-confidence of April 2022 when the JKT group helped Hamza Shehbaz, the son of Shehbaz Sharif, in his bid for the Chief Minister’s post in Punjab.

Last month, he was provided with another opportunity when the dismantling of the PTI began, after violent protests triggered by Imran Khan’s arrest.

Around a hundred PTI deserters, including some big names like former federal ministers Ali Zaidi, Fawad Chaudhry, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Aamer Kayani and former Sindh Governor Imran Ismail, left the PTI and were seen with the new party on the block.

Abdul Aleem Khan and Jahangir Khan Tareen were among the people who gave an identity to the PTI while it was still a struggling political outfit. They were part of the PTI’s crucial support system. But later on, Mr. Khan distanced himself from them after his government was formed in 2018. “It is not unusual for new political parties to emerge or for old parties to break before general elections. It is said that political parties are ideological but more or less, they have the same ideology. I wouldn’t call the IPP a new party as such because it has all those old stalwarts who were the faces of pre-May 9 PTI,” said Ayesha Bakhsh a senior anchorperson, referring to the day Mr. Khan was arrested.

The IPP, however, presents itself as a new beginning in Pakistan’s politics. Awn Chaudhry, additional secretary general and a spokesperson of the IPP, told The Hindu that the party is against “the politics of hate and divisions”. Its leadership seeks “political stability and prosperity” in Pakistan. But the party also seeks to maintain close ties with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of Prime Minister Shezbaz Sharif.