LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to resign and face a court of law in Daska by-poll rigging case.

It has also criticised the PTI government for making the most expensive LNG deal in the history of the country.

“Daska (investigation) report is out. Now take action. As stealing of votes has been proved, Imran Niazi should explain what he is waiting for,” PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif said here on Sunday.

“[The] ECP inquiry report on the Daska election is an eye-opening account of how [the] Imran government attempted to seal the public mandate. It is a slap in the face of [the] cabinet minister who raised a storm. The nation now awaits how the government bigwigs are made to answer for their role in the rigging,” he said in a post on his Twitter account.

Shehbaz said in a statement that the PTI government was trying to steal not just the public money from their pockets but also their right to vote and elect their representatives.

“If Imran Niazi has an iota of respect for the law, democracy and political ethics, he must resign after this report and face a court of law.”

In a reference to the prime minister’s claims of bringing in compliance with law the influential involved in corruption and other malpractices, he said: “Imran Niazi is a powerful person. (He should) bring himself under the (rule of) law. Why is he reluctant now only because he has been caught red handed?”

Recalling Nawaz Sharif’s act of appearing before courts while holding the office of the prime minister, he said it takes a lot to voluntarily present oneself for accountability and legal proceedings.

The PML-N president said the incumbent prime minister needed ‘black’ electoral reforms and electronic voting machines (to win next polls) after his vote theft was caught in Daska.

An inquiry report of the Election Commission of Pakistan on the February 2021 bypoll in National Assembly’s constituency NA-75, Daska, released this Friday had found election officials, police and local administration to be “puppets in the hands of their unlawful masters”.

The controversial election had been marred by violence, rigging and disappearance of 20 presiding officers along with records of their respective polling stations.

Mr Sharif vowed to counter what he said was a conspiracy against the country, the masses and the Constitution being hatched through electoral reforms, electronic voting machines and NAB amendment ordinance.

He said the ‘black’ plan of the government to enslave the masses would be foiled with the help of pro-constitution and pro-democracy political parties. Mr Sharif, who is also opposition leader in the National Assembly, chided the government for purchasing the most expensive LNG in the history of the country. He said the contract for supply of LNG at over $30 per MMBTU rate was another grave financial scandal and lamented that the masses would have to bear the brunt of the flawed handling of the gas crisis.

“From wheat flour to medicines to sugar to LNG, there seems to be corruption, ineptness and plunder of public money in each case as the incumbent government becomes Tehreek-i-Fraud and Plunder.”

He said the government, declared the most corrupt by the Transparency International, introduced the NAB amendment ordinance to save its skin and the plundered money.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2021