Imran Khan threatens sit-in against poll body

Imran Khan said his party and its workers had carried out a long struggle to ensure transparency in elections

LAHORE:

While celebrating the election tribunal’s verdict on NA-122 as his party’s victory, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan has warned that his party will stage another sit-in outside the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) if the poll body fails to respond to his July 30 letter.

Imran Khan, in a six-page letter to the ECP chief Sardar Raza Khan, had asked the commission to take action against those responsible for failures, breaches, and ‘illegalities’ in elections 2013.

The PTI chief had cited various sections of the report by the Judicial Inquiry Commission, which, according to him, had found “serious, systematic and pervasive failures and breaches by the ECP.”

“This time we will stage a dharna that will overshadow our previous 126-day long sit-in against the (alleged) rigging in May 2013 polls,” Imran said, while addressing his party workers at Zaman Park on Saturday evening.

Flanked by the party’s  bigwigs, including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Jehnagir Khan Tareen, Chaudhry Sarwar, Aleem Khan and Shoaib Siddiqi, the PTI chief also announced that they would contest the by-election only after ‘fake umpires’ are removed.

He said his party and its workers had carried out a long struggle to ensure transparency in elections. “Our purpose was to bring a democratic system in Pakistan which protects the sanctity of vote of every citizen of this country” he said.

Referring to the NA-122 decision, he directly addressed the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) stalwart and Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq who lost his candidacy after the tribunal declared the election at NA-122 constituency null and said that he did not held any personal grudges against Sadiq.

“I don’t feel happy and I understand your pain but my purpose was to ensure fair and transparent elections,” he said, adding that with ‘two wickets down’, the party was looking forward to the fall of the ‘third wicket’ next week.

The real decision, he said, would come when the ECP would answers his letter written after the JC’s report, adding that despite passage of three weeks the election commission had not responded to his letter. “I am giving it two more weeks after which I will stage a dharna outside the ECP,” he said.

A triumphant Imran Khan took to criticising the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and said if he had agreed to recounting in four constituencies, as demanded by the PTI earlier, so much time could have been saved. “It is my right and the responsibility of the ECP to provide us justice,” he added.

He also lambasted the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) and its chairman for ‘their role’ in the entire process. “Chairman of NADRA should be ashamed today,” he said, “he was being paid by taxpayers and not the PML-N”.

He said despite being the chief of a political party it took him two and a half years and Rs2.6 million to get justice from NADRA.  “If it took me this long time then imagine what would have happened to an ordinary citizen?”

He also lashed out at the ECP for its alleged nexus with the PML-N and involvement in rigging of the 2013 general elections. Terming it ‘a fixed match’, he said PML-N had used returning officers in Punjab to rig the elections. He said the ECP should have resigned by now.

Speaking about the NA-122 by-election, he said the ECP had lost the trust of the people. “Will this tainted ECP hold local government elections in Punjab? The same ECP against which 22 parties expressed reservations?”

Imran commended his Lahore team – including Shoaib Siddiqi, Aleem Khan and his legal adviser, Anees Ali Hashmi – for their fight in the case.  “We will fight the re-election but in case we have to face these fake umpires, we will stage a dharna,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2015.