Sanaullah was addressing a press conference at the Punjab Assembly’s cafeteria. PHOTO NNI
Of the 424 National and Provincial Assembly seats from the Punjab that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf fielded candidates for, only 15 candidates filed petitions with election tribunals alleging rigging in their constituencies...the rest of them accepted the results, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan said on Saturday.
Sanaullah was addressing a press conference at the Punjab Assembly’s cafeteria. He discussed the rigging allegations and the PTI’s protest planned for May 11.
“Since the PTI only blames the Punjab for rigging the elections, it is the Punjab government’s responsibility to counter these allegations with facts,” he said.
Sanaullah said that PTI candidates in 80 National Assembly constituencies had lost by large margins. Similarly, 175 of the 288 PTI candidates for the provincial assembly had not proved much of a competition, he said.
As many as 165 petitions challenging election results had been filed with election tribunals in the Punjab, he said, only 15 of them had been filed by PTI candidates.
Imran Khan should consider these statistics before decrying the election results, he said. Despite Khan’s repeated calls to his party members to file petitions in election tribunals, 409 chose to ignore his directions and accepted the election results without complaint, Sanaullah said.
Article 225 of the Constitution says that an issue pertaining to elections could only be filed in tribunals, not on other forums. Yet Khan moved an application in the Supreme Court asking for a recount of votes and finger print verification in four constituencies. He said the Supreme Court rightly directed him to approach the appropriate forum for that.
Sanaullah said now Khan, who has repeatedly expressed his mistrust of the judiciary, the executive, election tribunals and the former chief justice has now launched a campaign based on 15 petitions.
He said all economic indicators pointed to progress and this has worried Imran Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Tahirul Qadri. Sanaullah said they were enemies of democracy.
On the PTI-PAT joint protest, Sanaullah said the Punjab government had decided to allow the rallies, however the protesters would have to pass through security posts for their own protection.
Sanaullah said the government had not hindered the PTI’s protest caravan. The PTI has told its 424 election candidates to bring people to the protest in 10 buses each. They cannot gather that many people and are therefore telling the party leadership that the government is hindering their efforts, he said.
PTI lashes back
PTI Punjab president Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry said if the chief minister did not allow the PTI to exercise its democratic rights, they would hold the protest at Jati Umra.
He too held a press conference to respond to Sanaullah’s remarks.“It is shameful how Sanaullah can lie about not hindering PTI workers,” said Chaudhry. “Transporters have been telling our workers that they have been threatened with cancellation of their licenses if they transport PTI workers to Islamabad,” he said. He said the PTI had been protesting against rigging in the elections for a whole year. “The PTI general secretary and I went to the press club last year on May 13 and spoke about the blatant rigging.”
Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed said the government was operating like a mafia trying to prevent the rigging scam from being exposed. “No matter what scheme Rana Sanaullah and the chief minister cook up to prevent our workers from going to D-Chowk, nothing can stop us from exposing the injustice of the May 11 elections.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2014.
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