‘Govt may call snap polls if PTI dissolves Punjab, K-P assemblies’, Sanaullah tells Imran

PML-N was in favour of elections from day one but remained silent due to concerns of coalition partners, says minister

Amid calls by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for snap polls in the country, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has said that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was in favour of the early elections but has been silent due to concerns of the coalition partners.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on Thursday, he said that the general elections can be held if both Punjab and K-P assemblies are dissolved.

Sanaullah demanded that the verdict of the PTI foreign funding case must be announced immediately. "The case is pending for the last eight years... it has been reserved. I fail to understand what's the hurdle in announcing the verdict," he questioned.

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Lashing out at ex-prime minister Imran Khan, the interior minister said that the former was driving people out of the country. "National interest has no value for this man. Imran Khan is taking the nation towards a calamity and if the nation does not recognise that, we all would bear the consequences."

He alleged that Imran Khan himself looted Rs50 billion and does not respond to the allegations against him but kept on hurling abuses at the opponents.

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He said that the PML-N was in favour of the early election from day one but became silent due to concerns of the coalition partners, adding that party supreme leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is still in favour of going for the elections.

"It was these people [PTI] who agreed to increase the prices of electricity and petrol but we saved the country from default," he added.

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The PML-N leader said that Imran Khan himself had nominated the Chief Election Commissioner." If you wish to go to the Judicial Commission of Pakistan against the election commissioner then go but if you want elections then dissolve K-P and Punjab assemblies," he said but added that what the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDM) decides on the matter remains to be seen.

Sanaullah further said that the government has no power to arrest or detain anyone as it is the "jurisdiction of NAB and FIA".

He predicted that the new Punjab government will not last even for a month as it was standing on a difference of only seven votes.