Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday welcomed a legal notice sent to Imran Khan by former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, terming it a good opportunity to expose the nexus between the ex-CJ and ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Talking to journalists, PTI central information secretary Dr Shireen Mazari stated that PML-N has finally launched its 'opening batsman' in the shape of former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to hit out at PTI Chairman Imran Khan.
"We welcome this opportunity to expose the nexus between the ex-CJ and the PML-N especially over the rigging of the May 2013 election and the cover-up that followed. This is what derailed democracy. PTI intends to restore and strengthen democracy by exposing this planned mass rigging on August 14 through its Azadi March," she maintained. Mazari said the PTI had yet to receive the legal notice purportedly sent to its chairman, but she made it clear that there was no way PTI and its chairman would back down. She asserted that PTI has proof not only of the ex-CJ's "complicity" in the rigging and cover-up that followed but also the "nepotism" he indulged in using his office to promote his son beginning with his recruitment in the FIA.
She claimed that PTI has also got documentary evidence of his son's alleged corruption, adding all this will be put before the nation on 14 August - the day PTI wants to hold a 'million march' on Islamabad. Mazari pointed out that the PML-N is getting unnerved by the minute as its lack of an electoral mandate is nearing a complete expose, adding "that is why it is using all its team players to target Imran Khan but none of these attacks will stop PTI from its commitment to exposing of rigging, PML-N corruption and the derailment of democracy as the Sharifs' convert Pakistan into a quasi-monarchy." She also stated that it is shameful how low the PML-N can stoop to try and target the Chairman PTI. In this connection, she said the Speaker National Assembly accepting the Senate's motion against Imran Khan was a clear conflict of interest and could also be taken as a breach of privilege of a MNA.
"The Speaker had also lost all moral authority after rigging was exposed in his NA 122 constituency when 6 polling stations in PP 147 under his NA constituency, opened for vote verification revealed a massive fraud including casting of bogus votes", she added. Mazari said that such tactics by the PML-N and "their partner the ex-CJ" only bolstered the belief, not only within the PTI but also across the nation, that the PMLN was guilty of stealing the electoral mandate through rigging. She further stated that such PML-N shenanigans only bolster PTI's resolve to reclaim democracy and justice for Pakistan and its people - who came out to vote for a strong democracy not a quasi-monarchy.