Protest against rigging: Strategy locked and loaded, but PTI not pulling trigger … yet

Resignations would only involve MNAs and Punjab MPAs.

LAHORE:

In a meeting on the eve of Friday’s rally in Bahawalpur, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had discussed a number of measures to take against the government in their campaign to expose “massive rigging” in the 2013 general elections.

In addition to the Independence Day march on Islamabad – which the PTI has said it will carry out if the government fails to meet its four demands in a month’s time – another more dramatic strategy was also discussed: that of resignations.

According to sources privy to the development, the march on Islamabad could be followed by mass resignations by lawmakers in the Punjab and the National Assembly in order to press home their stand, should the need come.

Sources told The Express Tribune that the core committee meeting decided that some 30 MPAs from Punjab Assembly and 34 MNAs would submit their resignations just before or after the march. The party leadership has also asked PTI lawmakers to start informing their concerned constituencies and supporters about their likely resignations and to prepare them for the planned long march.

Interestingly, PTI has decided not to dissolve the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly as it would be needed to support the party’s long march and later activities.

PTI’s senior leadership, including Javed Hashmi and Shah Mehmood Qureshi, have urged Imran to refrain from dissolving the K-P Assembly and instead hold it as a trump card to ensure a ‘strong and effective’ strategy before and after the long march, the source added.

Earlier, the source said, Imran and Hashmi had informed PTI lawmakers that they were wasting their time in the national and provincial assemblies, adding that their resignations would help make the long march more effective and convince the government to open four constituencies for verification.

Further, the party leadership has decided against forming an alliance with any political party, including Tahirul Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT). “The party will not make any alliance with Tahirul Qadri or any other political party at any cost,” the source said. PTI, the source added, has deliberated over forming alliances with other political parties and come to the conclusion that any alliance would only damage the party’s objective.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2014.