Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan Muslim League-N are hopeful of a favourable verdict from the General Elections 2013 Inquiry Commission report (GEIC). If the PML-N gets a favourable report, then it may ask Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to take up two pending resolutions in the house on de-seating the PTI members for their absence for 40 days.
Talking to Business Recorder, the PML-N MNA Muhammad Tallal Chaudhry said his party is optimistic to get a favourable judicial commission report on the rigging allegations because the PTI has totally failed to prove its allegations before the commission. "The commission was formed to probe systematic rigging in the 2013 elections and the PTI has not provided even a single evidence to prove it," he said, claiming that his party would be proven innocent in the commission's report.
Chaudhry said that his party was divided over taking up the pending resolutions against the PTI to unseat them from the National Assembly. "One group in the party thinks the PTI members should be booted out for their prolonged absence in the assembly but the other feels they should remain part of the house," he said. He said that he would raise the issue on the floor of the house after the judicial commission's report on the rigging. "I have said it before and will say it again in the National Assembly that the PTI members should be unseated for violating the constitution," he said.
Under Article 64 (2) of the Constitution, any member of the National Assembly who remains absent for consecutive 40 days of its proceedings without giving any valid reasons for it could be unseated if a resolution against them is passed with a majority. The PTI members remained absent for over 40 days from the house when they were staging a sit-in in front of the Parliament House against the government. The JUI-F and MQM have submitted separate resolutions in the National Assembly for voting which are yet to be taken up.
Tallal Chaudhry, however, insisted that the speaker should take up the resolutions for voting as it is a violation of the constitution to remain absent for more than 40 consecutive days from the house. "It is a violation of the constitution to keep the PTI members in the National Assembly," he said. On the other hand, the PTI members are equally confident to get the commission's report in their favour on the rigging issue. They claim the PTI counsel Abdul Hafeez Pirzada has established before the judicial commission that systematic rigging was done in the 2013 elections. They say that it was revealed before the commission that over 20.5 million votes are unaccounted for as the Election Commission failed to present Forms-XV of extra ballots used in different constituencies.
PTI member Ghulam Sarwar Khan said that the PML-N should not remain in any illusion and start preparations for re-elections as it is going to be exposed for its involvement in systematic rigging. "I am seeing the assemblies dissolved before the PML-N can take up the resolutions against us," he said.
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