Asad Umar says election will be held on date given by President n Fawad demands imposition of Article 6 on five ECP members n Imran urges PTI Senators to join debate on elections in Parliament.
LAHORE - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday announced that the party would file a petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Friday (today) to challenge the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to put off Punjab Assembly elections.
The move comes a day after ECP deferred the Punjab Assembly elections by more than five months to October 8 citing security and funds shortage as reasons. Earlier, the ECP had scheduled Punjab polls for April 30.
Addressing a press conference here, PTI leaders including Asad Umar, Fawad Chaudhry and Ijaz Chaudhry said that PTI Chairman Imran Khan had decided that ECP decision would be challenged constitutionally. Ali Zafar will file a petition against the ECP decision in supreme court of Pakistan today (Friday), they said. Also, Imran Khan has directed PTI senators to join the debate on holding elections in Parliament. The PTI senators will defend the party position besides giving tough time to the government for delaying polls.
Imran Khan has also decided to continue the election campaign, they added. Fawad Chaudhry said that entire nation received a ‘gift’ of violation of the Constitution on March 23. The Bar associations have rejected the ECP’s decision. Fawad said that Tehreek-e-Insaf will stand with legal fraternity in every movement of lawyers. The people of Pakistan will reign supreme very soon, he added. Commenting on the ongoing joint session of Parliament, Fawad said that a joint session of Parliament was called to attack the Supreme Court. There has been only one attack on the Supreme Court in the history of Pakistan and the attackers are in the government, he alleged. This government is criticising three judges who had rejected the ruling of Qasim Khan Suri. Azam Nazeer Tarar should be hired as devil’s advocate.
Fawad went on to say, the whole of Pakistan is demanding to impose Article 6 on the five members of the Election Commission. For the first time, a civilian government has tried to subvert the Constitution. The Election Commission’s decision has been rejected by all bar associations. The government ministers are so incompetent that a 5-member bench was hearing the petition and they came out and said that the decision was in their favor 3 to 4. For the first time in the history of Pakistan, the ruling of the Deputy Speaker was annulled.
Asad Umar said that the decision of the Election Commission had defied the Constitution and the law. In three courts, the Election Commission took the position that the Election Commission can give the date of the elections. Later, the Election Commission retracted its statements and presented a new interpretation of the Constitution and decided a new date for elections. Asad Umar further said that the election would be held on the date given by the President of Pakistan. “We are finding it difficult to understand that on what basis IG Islamabad was awarded the Shujaat medal on Pakistan Day. If arresting workers and torturing them is considered to be the standard of bravery, then bravery medal awarded to IG Islamabad is justified. But for us the meaning of bravery is different.” Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Thursday demanded that all the PTI workers arrested during last week in police crackdown should be released immediately. In a series of tweets, he said that more than 740 unarmed PTI workers were arrested from Islamabad, Lahore and across the Punjab province. He said that these are poor people, many daily wage earners. “Cabal of crooks has no respect for sanctity of Holy month of Ramazan when people want to have security to fast and pray,” he said.
