ISLAMABAD: Former finance minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator Shaukat Tarin on Friday announced quitting party, Senate and active politics.
“I have decided to quit PTI and politics after consulting with friends and family members,” Tarin said in a statement on Friday.
“The last two years were very difficult for me due to health and financial issues,” the former finance minister said.
Tarin is the latest politician to part ways with the PTI. Over the past few months, a long list of politicians have quit the party after a nationwide crackdown was launched against it and hundreds of prominent leaders were arrested in reaction to the May 9 riots that broke out after Imran Khan’s arrest.
The most notable departures from the PTI in the aftermath of the May 9 violence have been Shireen Mazari, Asad Umar, Fawad Chaudhry, Pervez Khattak, Ali Zaidi and Farrukh Habib.
Only yesterday, former deputy Punjab Assembly speaker and firebrand Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Wasiq Qayyum Abbasi on Thursday announced to quit party as well as politics.
In an announcement on X, former MPA from Rawalpindi Abbasi said that he had decided to leave PTI due to party’s policy of confronting with the state institutions.
My political career is aimed at serving the people but now it is unbearable to hold the burden of confrontation with the state and its institutions,” the young PTI leader said.
Shaukat Tarin was appointed as the finance minister in 2021.
Tarin, who was earlier serving as an adviser to the prime minister on finance and revenue, was elected as a senator last week in the by-election for a general seat of the Senate from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Tarin had also served as the finance minister in former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani’s cabinet from 2009 to 2010.
Tarin said that he tried to pay back the country for the last 27 years at “great personal costs” as he followed in the footsteps of his father, a Pakistan Movement veteran.
