LAHORE: Making a last-ditch effort to seek fresh elections, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on Friday invited the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government to give a date for next general elections or else he will use the option of dissolving Punjab and Khyber Pal(htunl(hwa assemblies, taking nearly two thirds of the nation to vote.

`We are giving you (PDM government) a chance to sit with usand discuss a date for general elections, otherwise the Punjab and KP assemblies will be dissolved,` Mr Khan conveyed this message while speaking at a scheduled meeting with PunjabAssembly legislators via video link from his Zaman Park residence on Friday.

Mr Khan said he had unwavered backing from the PML-Q as Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi visited him and assured that the assembly would be dissolved on his becl( and call. `We have a full option to dissolve assemblies that will lead 66 percent Pakistanis to elections besides compelling PDM`s 11 parties to join elections practically freezing the federal government,` he warned.

The PTI chief has been demanding fresh elections since his government was toppled through what he called a `regime change conspiracy` in April, but the PDM government paid no heed to the demand. He eventually announced `Hageeqi Azadi` march from Lahore that concluded in Rawalpindi after over a month, with the `surprise announcement by Mr Khan that the PTI would quit from all provincial assemblies and request the National Assembly speaker to accept the resignations submitted by his party lawmakers earlier this year.

At the meeting, he told party parliamentarians that PDM member parties were afraid of going to polls, 1(nowing that the country was facing worstever economic crisis and the masses would not vote for them.

Mr Khan said the coalition government`s roadmap had been reduced to registering cases against PTI leaders, get him disqualified and incarcerate him as already indicated by PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari, harass P TI workers, and get their own corruption cases closed.

The former premier said the country needed urgent elections so that political sta-bility be ensured and the businesses, investors as well as outer world could regain trust to worl( with Pakistan and boom its economy. Otherwise, he said, the PDM government had increased country`s debt manifold from Rs6 trillion to Rs30 trillion, while the PTI government tried to reviveeconomy,investments, remittances and record tax collection to re-pay taxes.

Now yet again, he said, the country was heading towards default and the whole world was acknowledging it.

He said the federal government did not pay some Rs176bn due for Punjab,Rs120bn for Sindh as well as to Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and even Balochistan leaving development projects to come at a grinding halt.

He regretted that finance minister Ishaq Dar had also fallen silent as he could neither bring down the dollar rate nor able to tackle the IMF and Moody`s.

PTFs senior leader Fawad Chaudhry told the media that the party leadership had approved the dissolution of assemblies in both provinces, but the `final decision` would be made after further consultations.