ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan has said that despite court orders he was never allowed in jail to hold meeting with PTI leaders on the distribution of tickets to party candidates for the upcoming elections and accused PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif of playing the match “with the umpires of choice”.

The PTI founder expressed these views while interacting with the media after attending court proceedings in the Toshakhana case on Saturday.

He said that a certified money launderer returned to Pakistan under the London Plan and was given a safe passage as the courts allegedly appeared to be lenient with his opponents.

Before the court proceedings began, about two dozen PTI workers and candidates of different constituencies complained to Mr Khan about being denied party tickets. He told them that the tickets were awarded with his little input and that he was unaware of their distribution. He explained to them that it was not possible for him to make a quick decision on the award of 850 tickets in a brief discussion with party leaders.

Only issue for any talks with relevant quarters is free, fair election, says former premier

In response to a question if he was ready to hold dialogue with the certain quarters, the former premier replied that he had been given the option for a dialogue 18 months ago, but he had no idea of holding talks “with whom” and “for what”.

“The only issue left for discussion is conducting free and fair elections,” he added.

He expressed concerns over the resignation of two senior judges of the Supreme Court.

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He believed all attempts being made against PTI’s election symbol of “bat” were aimed at debilitating the party before elections, but it will fight till the last ball no matter what happens.

Asked if PTI would support Sheikh Rashid in the elections, Mr Khan said the party had made a decision of not accommodating those who held a press conference to condemn the leadership.

Responding to a question as to why he always blamed former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa but not former spymaster Faiz Hameed, Mr Khan said: “Orders in the army comes from the top.”

Referring to the 2018 elections that his party had won, he said the PTI was also a victim of a sudden collapse of Result Transmission System (RTS) then, as it could not secure the seats required to form a stable government. The PTI lost 15 seats with a margin of less than 3,000 votes in 2018 elections, he added.

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Regarding the article recently published in The Economist, Mr Khan said he had verbally dictated that article to his lawyers and asked them to get more information from his previously recorded interviews.

Sources said the jail administration had intercepted some hand-written notes of Mr Khan that his lawyers were taking out from jail premises but then he took those back. The same were later produced before the judge, who asked lawyers to remove Mr Khan’s signatures from the pages before returning those to them.

During the Toshakhana case proceedings, Judge Mohammad Bashir of the accountability court recorded the statement of four witnesses.

Eight witnesses have testified before the court so far. Further proceeding in this matter has been adjourned till January 15.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2024