ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan has accused the PML-N and PPP of rigging the Senate elections and said his party will not support their candidates for the post of Senate chairman.

Addressing a news conference after a meeting of the party’s core committee on Friday, Mr Khan warned that he would hold another sit-in if the government did not constitute the judicial commission within one month and demonstrate seriousness about free and fair elections.

He said his party believed in transparent elections and that was why it had nominated Senate candidates only from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Know more: Imran accuses PPP of horse-trading in collusion with JUI-F

Mr Khan praised PTI lawmakers for following their leader and the ‘party’s ideology’. “Members of the KP Assembly refused all offers of money because their leader rejected the offer. I want this kind of change in politics,” he said.

He said that those who had moved a privilege motion against him 18 months ago were hypocrites because former president Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif knew that money was used in Senate elections.

“I just want to ask how PPP candidate Nadeem Afzal Chan got votes more than the party’s total strength (in the Punjab Assembly) and how the government candidate, Yaqoob Khan Nasir, lost the Senate election (in Balochistan),” he said.

He claimed that in the past political leaders and party members used to earn money through Senate elections.

“The announcement of a constitutional amendment by the government was nothing but a drama. Moreover, at a time of crisis in the country, Nawaz Sharif went to Saudi Arabia,” he added.

Mr Khan said the PTI would start a campaign for direct election of senators and a committee would be formed to devise a strategy.

In reply to a question, he said his party would continue its campaign against the ‘rigging’ committed in the 2013 general elections and would prove that the National Assembly speaker had been elected through bogus votes.

“The government has to take action after an inquiry by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) into the rigging in NA-122. Otherwise, we will have no choice but to take to the streets. The government should immediately set up a judicial commission to investigate the rigging,” he said.

In reply to a question, Mr Khan said he had doubts about the sincerity of the government and that was why he had contacted Nadra instead of waiting for a decision by the election tribunal.

He said he would soon meet the Nadra chairman.

Published in Dawn March 7th , 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play