Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Wednesday the opposition parties should present the evidence of rigging in July 25 elections as a parliamentary committee for the purpose has been constituted.
Speaking to the media, he said all national and international organisations like the European Union Observers have declared the general elections "transparent and free." The minister said government has constituted the parliamentary committee to probe rigging in the elections on demand of the PML-N and PPP. "Everybody knows that allegations of rigging are efforts to remain alive in the politics," he said.
Chaudhry said terms of reference (ToRs) of the committee are yet to be decided.
Earlier in the day, the 30-member parliamentary committee unanimously appointed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Pervez Khattak as the committee chairperson. Khattak's name for the chairperson's role was proposed by PPP's Naveed Qamar. After no one objected to it, the federal defence minister assumed the role unopposed.
The information minister also said PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari should not be taken seriously as presently he is in a state of mental shock. He said Zardari has the habit of mentioning things at inappropriate and wrong time. He further said Zardari cannot become popular, whatever he might say.
About the reported data stealing of some banks, he said experts in the PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-N folds could give the answer. He said it would be a joke to appoint Opposition Leader Shahbaz Sharif as chairman Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to examine audit accounts of the tenure of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. To a question about the relationship between Nawaz Sharif and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, he said he could not comment as it is their personal matter.