ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, while rejecting the government’s formed committee on alleged sale purchase of 2018 senate elections, has demanded a judicial commission headed by the chief justice of Pakistan to probe the allegations.
Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, he held the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Prime Minister Imran Khan responsible for the sale and purchase of votes in 2018 Senate elections.
He said the inquiry committee constituted by PM Imran Khan was unconstitutional, adding that how in the Senate chairman elections in 2018, opposition candidate Raja Zafarul Haq was defeated, and again in no-confidence move against the incumbent chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani, he survived, despite the fact the opposition has clear majority in the upper house of the parliament.
He demanded that all such matters must be investigated in detail, so that the ill practices in elections must come to an end.
Mushtaq said the PTI leadership through a leaked video had leveled false allegations against him.
“I was elected, as JI and Awami National Party (ANP) made an election alliance in the Senate elections 2018. I got 12 votes, of which five were of ANP and seven of JI,” he explained.
He said in principle PM Imran Khan, Defense Minister Pervaiz Khattak then chief minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser, speaker KP Assembly must be held accountable as all sale purchase of members provincial assembly (MPAs) was conducted under the supervision of PTI chief Imran Khan at Asad Qaiser’s house.
“I am wondering how PTI was talking against others, while the whole party was involved in election rigging. This is a serious matter and a commission under the chief justice of Pakistan should be constituted to probe the matter,” Mushtaq Khan said.
He said that the PTI government had constituted a strange committee to probe the matter; all the members of the investigating committee were from the ruling PTI.
“Nobody is going to accept such an inquiry committee, it is tantamount to giving an NRO to himself,” he added.
Responding to a question, he said in KP, JI was in an alliance with Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) parties, while in centre JI was not going to support any side.
He said the Supreme Court must start hearing Panama Papers case as after giving verdict against Nawaz Sharif, the SC had not taken up the case.
He said cases were still pending against 334 people named in Panama Papers out of 435, adding that most of the people involved in Panama Papers leak have joined the PTI-led government.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021