Qaidi 804 | Sone De Jhumke | Waqiii Nakyal Wa Ft Shahbaz Khalidi by Taqi ul Hassnain

Here is a brief history of Imran Khan and PTI ¹ ²: *Early Life and Cricket Career:* - Imran Khan was born in Lahore, Pakistan, on October 5, 1952, into an affluent Pashtun family. - He was educated at elite schools in Pakistan and the United Kingdom. - Khan played cricket in Pakistan and the United Kingdom in his teens and continued playing while studying philosophy, politics, and economics at the University of Oxford. - Khan played his first match for Pakistan’s national team in 1971, but he did not take a permanent place on the team until after his graduation from Oxford in 1976. - By the early 1980s, Khan had distinguished himself as an exceptional bowler and all-rounder, and he was named captain of the Pakistani team in 1982. - In 1992, Khan achieved his greatest athletic success when he led the Pakistani team to its first World Cup title, defeating England in the final. *Entry into Politics:* - After his retirement from cricket, Khan became an outspoken critic of government mismanagement and corruption in Pakistan. - He founded his own political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Justice Movement; PTI), in 1996. - In national elections held the following year, the newly formed party won less than 1 percent of the vote and failed to win any seats in the National Assembly, but it fared slightly better in the 2002 elections, winning a single seat that Khan filled. - Khan maintained that vote rigging was to blame for his party’s low vote totals. - In October 2007, Khan was among a group of politicians who resigned from the National Assembly, protesting Pres. Pervez Musharraf’s candidacy in the upcoming presidential election. - In November, Khan was briefly imprisoned during a crackdown against critics of Musharraf, who had declared a state of emergency. *Rise to Prominence:* - The PTI successfully mobilized support through social media campaigns, and in October 2011, it organized its first mass rally in Lahore, Pakistan’s largest city. - While the party had previously focused on issues of infrastructure and justice, it now took a more vocal stance against Pakistan’s reliance on foreign actors. - By the time general elections were held in 2013, Khan had become one of the most popular political figures in Pakistan and had recruited the support of several veteran politicians. - In addition to winning a handful of seats in the National Assembly, the PTI won a majority of the legislative seats in the predominantly Pashtun province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and was able to form a government there. - The PTI gained a reputation for reform in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa even as the central government, under the premiership of the embroiled Nawaz Sharif, became mired in scandal. *Government of Imran Khan:* - The PTI government, in power from August 2018 to April 2022 under Khan’s premiership, faced formidable domestic challenges. - It inherited a balance-of-payments crisis, spurred by enormous debt commitments, such as those imposed by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative. - The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, added to the financial stress as the PTI remained hesitant to implement lockdowns and soaring infections placed tremendous strain on the health care system. - Khan attempted to reorient Pakistan’s foreign policy. - He tried to court foreign aid and investment from an increasingly wide range of countries and under favourable conditions, hoping to reduce Pakistan’s reliance on any particular foreign entity. - Meanwhile, he became an arbiter between the Taliban and the United States, which helped bring about the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan as well as improved relations between Pakistan and the Taliban.