Official rebuttal: PTI rebuffs Kasuri’s allegations of nepotism

Statement claims she expressed interest in NA-48 by-polls but Imran refused her request.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Thursday clarified that Fauzia Kasuri has never been a founding member of his party. All allegations being levelled by Kasuri against PTI’s top leadership are biased and unfounded, according to an official statement.

The official statement clarified some statements made by Fauzia Kasuri particularly her long association with PTI stating, “Founding members of PTI were Imran Khan, Naeemul Haque, Ahsan Rasheed, Hafeez Khan, Mowahid Hussain, Mahmood Awan and Nausherwan Burki. These seven members laid the foundation of the party in April 1996 and no one else is a founding member even though many may be very old members.”

Fauzia Kasuri quit PTI earlier this week and has been levelling allegations that the party’s top leadership has been ignoring merit and is involved in nepotism.

Earlier, PTI chairman Imran Khan also refused to award a ticket to Fauzia Kasuri for NA-48, the seat PTI president Javed Hashmi vacated earlier this week. “On the day of her resignation, she spoke to the chairman and expressed an interest in NA-48 but the chairman refused to accommodate her request,” the statement further revealed.



Fauzia, however, could not be contacted for her viewpoint till the filing of this report.

PTI officials said that the party’s former Women Wing president Fauzia Kasuri failed to qualify for intra-party elections because she had not even commenced the process of surrendering her US nationality at the time of the elections on March 21, 2013.

Party administrators further said that Kasuri had been a member of the Constitution Committee of PTI and was well aware of the restrictions on dual nationals holding party office. A day after the intra-party elections on March 22, 2013, Kasuri went to the US Consulate Lahore to actualise the process of citizenship renunciation. She then demanded a re-election of the intra-party elections to accommodate her, which could not be done legally as elections had been held according to the rules.

Also, legally, citizenship ceases to exist after the final certificate has been issued by the concerned government so her (Fauzia Karsuri) eligibility was legally not restored by March 22, 2013, they said.

PTI Women Priority list was finalized by March 31, 2013 and she was informed that she was No 4 in the Punjab list for the National Assembly. She not only accepted the order but took part in the election campaigns and other activities.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2013.