LAHORE: Former Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Punjab Organiser Chaudhry Sarwar has asserted that he will contest the intra-party elections because the party’s election commission has no clause that bars him from contesting the election for a party post.

He was giving a reply regarding the controversy whether he could contest the intra-party election or not while talking to the media at a lunch hosted by PTI leader Muhammad Umar here on Sunday.

Mr Sarwar said he had also consulted party chairman Imran Khan who allowed him to contest the intra-party election. He said he would be contesting the election for the Punjab president post.

He dispelled the impression that he was leaving the PTI and its workers, adding that he was working alongside Imran Khan for the next general election. He said the greatest challenge the PTI was facing was to promote and select people on merit. He vowed to transform the PTI into an institution and select electoral candidates on merit.

Says he will vie for PTI Punjab president slot

Answering a question, Mr Sarwar admitted the party could have secured more seats if it had selected candidates well before the local government elections.

Stating that some 200 million people were supporting the PTI, Mr Sarwar claimed the party’s vote bank had doubled as compared to 2013 general elections. He said the PML-N’s NA-122 candidate Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, the National Assembly Speaker, would soon be disqualified because he had committed rigging in the by-election like in the general elections of 2013.

The PTI leader alleged that the PML-N was supporting culprits, gangsters and criminals in the province to articulate its political support in the province. He claimed that the volume of corruption in the government had doubled as compared to the tenure of Asif Ali Zardari. Now, he said, every Pakistani was owed debt of Rs100,000 as compared to Rs82,000 in the PPP’s tenure.

Sarwar said the government had ignored the basic facilities and sectors of education and health and it was spending the whole budget on the Orange Line train with no productive utility.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2016