LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Punjab President Ejaz Chaudhry has said the election tribunal’s decision on Hamid Khan’s petitions (NA-125) is self-explanatory.

“The tribunal’s decision is a befitting response to those, who were saying that PTI is crying for nothing and wants to overthrow the government,” he said.

Speaking here on Tuesday, Mr Chaudhry said all those ‘cheap’ delaying tactics used by Khwaja Saad Rafique as well as activism of Parvez Rasheed just prior to Azadi March and daily nonsensical press conferences of the PML-N ministers had turned out to be useless in the end.

Mr Chaudhry said Saad Rafique had been punished for sabotaging the electoral process in NA-125 and it would serve as a lifetime lesson for all those, who made their way in parliament through rigging.

He said no returning officer had the courage to tamper with votes unless he had protection from the political elite. The PTI’s struggle for fair and free electoral process would continue, he added.

General Secretary Dr Yasmin Rashid said PTI was the only party that took a firm stand against the blatant rigging in May 2013 elections. During the 126-day historic sit-in, she said, Imran Khan and the PTI leadership kept holding their nerves and stuck to their goals with public support.

“Our struggle paid off in the form of judicial commission and yesterday’s decision is the beginning of the end to the rigged parliament,” she said.

She regretted that electoral fraud had become a norm in Pakistan and it led to the entry of corrupt and incompetent politicians in the parliament.

She said the PTI had always emphasised free and fair elections. The NA-125 decision had strengthened the democracy, she added.

Information Secretary Andleeb Abbas said Imran Khan was the man, who struggled for neutral umpiring in cricket, when all the cricketing nations were against him and now he was bringing free and fair polls and the entire ‘status quo forces’ were again against him.

She said rigging had been established in NA-125 and Khwaja Saad Rafique stood disqualified and he could not fool the nation with his twisted interpretation of the judgment.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2015

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