ISLAMABAD: Ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb on Monday said that former prime minister Imran Khan was all set to target Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) through a fake narrative ahead of the Election Commission of Pakistan’s verdict in the PTI’s foreign funding case.

Speaking at a press conference, she said that the State Bank of Pakistan’s documents had already proved involvement of the PTI chairman in the illegal funding and money laundering case and now after eight years, the ECP was all set to announce its verdict.

However, she said, in order to make the ECP and CEC controversial, the PTI chairman had stated that he was going to file a reference against the CEC on the issue of delayed delimitation of constituencies.

She said that there was no issue of delimitation of constituencies, but the former prime minister knew that he and his party were going to be punished in the foreign funding case, as the SBP’s documents had pinpointed illegal funding and money laundering into the case.

Claims SBP papers prove Imran was involved in illegal funding case

She said that after the foreign “conspiracy” mantra, Mr Khan was now trying to attack the ECP through a reference against the CEC.

After the Islamabad High Court’s directive of April 1 to the ECP to decide the foreign funding case within a month, the former prime minister a few days ago told journalists that he would file the reference against CEC.

The PML-N leader further said that PTI had received funding from 16 foreign accounts of companies and individuals from Norway, Australia, Dubai, the United Kingdom, Canada, Finland and other European and Middle Eastern countries, adding that an Indian citizen Romita Shetty was also among the PTI’s financiers.

The PML-N leader said that from all these accounts, US $73.23 million, and PKR 852 million were deposited in PTI and employees of the party’s accounts and the amount was never declared by the PTI to the ECP.

Earlier, she said PTI, through his leaders such Asad Umar and others, had petitioned the Islamabad High Courts (IHC) not to make public the foreign funding details of PTI accounts. But, she said, the court had dismissed the plea of PTI leaders and directed the ECP to issue the verdict within a month.

She also said that by using robots, the PTI had now launched a trending campaign on Twitter against the ruling coalition.

Meanwhile, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz said on Monday that PTI was using fake Twitter accounts to try to promote its conspiracy theory mantra on the social media platform.

In a tweet she said: “Another IK lie exposed, another conspiracy unveiled. Turns out that the slander campaigns against state institutions & lies about international conspiracy were churned out & spread by no more than a handful of people employing hundreds of fake accounts & BOTS.”

She said that PTI had been raising allegations only to avoid questions on its performance in four years as through their failed policies, the PTI government made the life of the people of the country miserable.

She said that high inflation, unemployment, crippling economy, mishandling of the Kashmir issue and foreign policy misadventure were hallmarks of the PTI government. She also said that the former prime minister retained Toshakhana gifts worth Rs140 million by paying only Rs30 million.

In another tweet, Ms Nawaz said that the former prime minister would have to ans­werable for the Tosha­khana issue, adding that these gifts had been the ownership of the state and not of Imran Khan.

She also criticised President Dr Arif Alvi and said if he did not want to administrator the oath to cabinet members, then he should resign and go home.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2022