Former PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry said on Saturday that there was a dire need to bring down the political temperature, adding that pursuing engagement with other parties and shunning confrontation was the best way to resolve current issues afflicting the party.

Chaudhry, who had remained in jail for months after the removal of the PTI government in April 2022, after his release, had condemned the May 9 violent protests by the party’s supporters and, through a post on X on May 24, 2024, had himself announced to part ways with former premier Imran Khan.

The PTI had “completely disassociated” itself from him in December 2024, stating that he was not authorised to issue statements to the media or participate in TV talk shows on behalf of the party.

Talking to Dawn on Saturday in his hometown of Jhelum, Chaudhry said: “I am a politician by birth and I believe in a political solution to political issues. Confrontation and endless confrontation see no light at the end of the tunnel.”

The former information minister said that he had categorically pointed out during the early days of turmoil that the current party leadership did not have the ability to secure Imran’s freedom, and his remarks were bitterly criticised.

Chaudhry said that winning Imran’s freedom was always his main concern, and that’s why he was again forced to issue a statement that the path of reconciliation, shunning confrontation and “giving a shut-up call to the self-centred social media working from offshore destinations” was the panacea to the party’s current ills.

He said that many party leaders who met Imran in jail agreed, and “those who matter in PML-N, they also have the same line of thinking”. Chaudhry said that engaging with the government and establishment was the need of the hour, and he reiterated that he was making sincere efforts to find a political solution.

The former PTI spokesperson said he had advocated his position about pursuing engagement over confrontation in a meeting with Imran in Adiala Jail.

He remarked that those who were raising the political temperature from the PTI’s end on social media were doing no favours to the party and were jeopardising the party’s future for their own interests.

Chaudhry further said that the operators of the party’s social media accounts were no doubt attracting viewership by “airing volatile controversies and by playing with the emotions of the party workers”, but he said this was not the way and not appropriate to pave the path for Imran’s release.

He said the PTI was a political party and it had a future to engage in politics at the national level, adding that “pouring fuel on the fire with every new attractive video or so-called analysis” was shrinking political space at the national level.

When asked if he was still in the PTI, Chaudhry instantly replied, “If I were out of PTI, I would have been a minister like many who deserted Khan during hard times.“

Chaudhry’s remarks come in the wake of reports from Daily Ausaf and The Express Tribune that said, citing sources, senior politicians who were part of the PTI’s “old leadership” were planning to relaunch a political movement calling for Imran’s release.

The media reports had claimed that Chaudhry and Asad Umar, former Sindh governor Imran Ismail, former MNA Mahmood Moulvi, and ex-Punjab Assembly speaker Sibtain Khan were expected to lead the initiative once released. All of them, except for Sibtain, had parted ways with the PTI following the May 9 riots.

According to the ET report, sources said the veteran leaders intended to bring on board other experienced political figures from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh. “The movement will pick up real pace after Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s release, when the old guard will be seen back in active political action,” a report quoted a source as saying.

The reports came after Chaudhry and Ismail posted near-identical statements on X yesterday, saying they had not only met Qureshi, who was hospitalised recently, but also party leadership and workers imprisoned at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail.

PTI’s Sheikh Waqas rubbishes notion of old leaders leading any effort

Meanwhile, PTI Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram downplayed the reports of the ex-party stalwarts playing any role to play in the future in an interview on Geo News show ‘Naya Pakistan’.

“This is not a new thing that [news] comes about, such people who left the party. In the last year, there have been many attempts to sell this narrative from such characters, and it has not gotten any support.

“Such attempts were also made at Adiala … but there was no support for such narratives from Khan’s side, and I think when they were disappointed from there and saw the mood ahead of Sohail Afridi becoming the chief minister, so they [turned] towards Kot Lakpat.”

He said there were a “few people who want to remain relevant because they are not part of any party anymore”. “Everyone has a shop to sell, but that has no link or impact on our party,” he said.

Questioned about an opinion in the party to lower the political temperature, Akram resolutely said: “There is only one thinking in the PTI: whatever Imran Khan says, will happen. The rest is irrelevant. Who says what doesn’t matter doesn’t hold any weight. End of the story. Who thinks what or doesn’t? nothing [matters].”