News Desk |
Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan attracted almost 30,000 US based Pakistanis on Sunday. Khan put up the big show in Washington DC as his US supporters flooded the Capital One Arena to welcome him.
The arena was full to the maximum seating capacity, of almost 20,000, while thousands more were gathered outside the arena.
Read more: PM Khan in Washington: Holding Mirror to his detractors back home?
Some supporters even boasted of how their “Captain turned Washington into Lahore”.
#NextOutsideWhiteHouse
Historical words😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/srQu1B8O7S— Muhammad Araib❤️🇵🇰 (@MuhammadAraib00) July 22, 2019
Never before has a Pakistani leader managed to attract such a massive crowd on foreign soil, Khan’s Washington jalsa is an unprecedented event.
Imran Khan and his US supporters break Indian records
Before PM Khan’s Sunday jalsa, Modi’s 2014 speech in Madison Square Garden, New York had been dubbed the largest gathering in the US for any foreign leader.
18,500 American-Indians attended Modi’s speech and 800 more gathered at Times Square for a live feed of the speech.
Indian-Americans, one of the wealthiest diaspora communities in the US, got tickets through 400 partner organizations across the US.
On 21st July, 2019, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan broke Modi’s record with a massive gathering of American-Pakistanis, amounting up to almost 30,000 people, exceeding the maximum seating capacity of the Capital One Arena.
Live from Washington. PM Imran Khan’s jalsa pic.twitter.com/X46bcviDvn
— Maleeha Lodhi (@LodhiMaleeha) July 21, 2019
This attendance surpassed the previous Indian record by almost a double.
Some hardcore supporters also stated that unlike Modi’s gathering in the US, supporters were not sold tickets or attracted through lavish food arrangements.
Read more: Pakistanis call for another Khan jalsa outside White House
Instead doctors, engineers, lawyers, accountants & businessmen spent hundreds of dollars and travelled from Europe, Canada and all over the US to welcome Imran Khan.
The Pakistani community, which is 1/6th the size of the Indian community, outdid them by packing this stadium to capacity, while thousands more thronged the streets outside during a 40 degrees heat-wave.