ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Monday termed NA-148 (Multan) by-elections as a continuation of the public mandate theft and another stain on the face of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
Reacting to the NA-148 results in which Qasim Gilani, the son of former prime minister and current Senate Chairman Yusuf Raza Gilani, had a lead over Barrister Taimur of PTI, the PTI spokesman Raoof Hasan vowed that the party would not give up its struggle from reclaiming its stolen mandate.
He thanked the people of NA-148 for coming out in a huge number to vote for the PTI-backed candidate despite adversarial circumstances.
He said those celebrating victory after flouting laws, using state machinery, and committing election rigging should drown in shame.
Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, who was elected as chairman Senate from the incomplete house, should apologise to the nation especially the people of Multan, for destroying the sanctity of the vote, he added.
“If the father and his son, the claimant of Bhutto’s political legacy, had any sense of shame or democracy, they would have preferred to drown in shame instead of contesting an election in such a fraudulent way,” he added.
He lamented that the shameful series of open discrediting of democracy and the basic constitutional right of the people to vote continued unabated in Pakistan.
He pointed out that in Sunday’s by-election in NA-148 Multan, the state machinery used the same old tricks of polls fraud, which were carried out on February 9 and April 21, adding that every fraud on people’s right to vote was facilitated by the criminals in the ECP.
He recalled that a member of the most crooked Gilani family of Multan was seen by the entire nation buying votes in Senate elections with bags full of money but the dishonest and unscrupulous Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) avoided taking any action against Gilani’s son at that time.
He continued that the dishonest CEC was now busy justifying the unlawful acts of this family on behalf of “the king of the jungle”.
Hasan made it clear that PTI would not give up its struggle to restore the sanctity of the vote in the face of intimidation, lawlessness, and poll robbery.
He vowed that they would fight the mandate thieves in every field, every forum and at every level to get back the stolen people’s mandate.
He also said that PTI would resist the Punjab government’s move to deprive citizens of their constitutional right of freedom to expression and press under the guise of a new defamation law in the province.
He strongly condemned the “organised” state invasion against the basic constitutional rights of the citizens and added that PTI would not accept any unconstitutional legislative or administrative measures in any part of the country and would strongly resist any such move.
Meanwhile, founding PTI chairman Imran Khan said he was deeply saddened to hear about the death of President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in the helicopter crash.
“President Ebrahim Raisi led his country’s resolute support for the suffering Palestinian people,” he added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024