SWABI: Central PTI leader and former speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser on Friday said the best option for the federal government was to immediately release his party`s incarcerated founder, Imran Khan, as its tactics to keep him behind bars had backfire d.

He told Dawn at the district council`s assembly hall here that it was a good sign that the government had begun talks with the PTI.

Mr Qaiser said that the previ-ous rounds were held in a constructive environment during which the PTI presented proposals to make the dialogue resultoriented.

He said the PTI leadership believed in negotiations, so it sat down with the government despite serious reservations, especially how manipulated general elections deprived the party of its mandate.

The PTI leader demanded the release of PTI founder Imran Khan, who, he insisted, was arrested by the federal government in fabricated cases and was kept in jail under a well-planned strategy.

He said the entire nation knew that the federal government`s policy had back-fired and were totally rejected by the people.Mr Qaiser said the government faced a dilemma: the longer they kept Imran Khan in jail, the more his popularity grew.

He said the government should accept reality and release him as soon as possible to strengthen democracy and ensure people`s development.

The PTI leader said since the incarceration of Imran Khan last year, the PTI had adopted the politics of protest, while relations between government and PTI deteriorated, and politics of confrontation had reached alarming proportions, creating an upsetting scenario.

He said that it was the democratic and constitutional right of the PTI to resort to protests against unjust decisions of thegovernment.

Mr Qaiser said negotiations were a positive move not only for the federal government and the PTI but for the entire country as well.

Meanwhile, PTI leaders on Friday welcomed the party leadership`s decision to continue negotiations with the government as a positive step.

They told a gathering in Tordher here that the government should accept the PTPs demands.

Adviser to the chief minister on industries Abdul Karim said that the PTI was forced to stage street protests and the federal government was to blame for it.

`We are democratic people, who believe in democracy and national development,` he said.