LAHORE, Sept 7: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has decided not to go into a political alliance with any party in local body elections in Punjab but the party may hold joint protests against the Local Government Act.

This was decided by the PTI’s Punjab local body committee at a meeting held under the chairmanship of party’s chief Imran Khan here on Saturday.

The meeting decided the PTI would challenge the Local Government Act in the court and hold protest demonstrations across Punjab against it. In this regard, the meeting agreed the PTI would join hands with all opposition parties and develop a joint strategy against the Act.

Imran Khan said the PTI would prove in the local body elections that it had a ‘massive’ vote bank. He suggested the Punjab government should learn from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s local body bill and see how it would hold the local elections on party basis there. The KP government was also planning electronic voting in the local body elections, he added.

Mr Khan said the holding of local body elections on non-party basis would be a clear violation of the Constitution and the Charter of Democracy signed by major political parties.

He said the ‘autocratic’ mentality of PML-N leadership was visible through the Act, which had centralised all powers to the chief minister. He directed the PTI Punjab to make all out efforts to save people of the province from the ‘injustice’ of non-party polls.

PTI Punjab president Ejaz Chaudhry, secretary general Dr Yasmin Rashid, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, Fareed-ud-Din, Mian Mehmoodur Rashid, Shafqat Mehmood, Abdul Aleem Khan, Rai Hassan Nawaz, Mian Aslam Iqbal, Nadeem Qadir Bhindar, Naeem Mir, Shanila Roath, Sobia Kamal and other committee members attended the meeting.