KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said their sit-ins against ‘rigged’ elections were started in Karachi when voters on their own staged a sit-in on roads to protest rigging in constituency NA-250, which compelled the election commission to conduct re-polling there.

Mr Qureshi, who was speaking at a press conference here at the party office soon after landing in Karachi from Islamabad on Thursday, was responding to a question as to why the issue of ‘rigged’ elections in Karachi was being ‘ignored’ by the PTI, which was mainly focussing on the ‘rigged’ polls in Punjab.

Responding to another question about the MQM’s statement that they were ready to resign from their 25 National Assembly seats to save democracy, the PTI leader said that they would welcome any positive step taken by any party in this regard.

He said the purpose of his this visit to the metropolis was to engage the people of Karachi and express gratitude to them for their political awareness and to convey a message of PTI chief Imran Khan during the sit-in at the Seaview.

Mr Qureshi conceded that it was their shortcoming that the party leadership failed to pay due attention to Karachi and the interior of Sindh and they would compensate it by establishing contacts with the people in the province.

About PTI resignations, he said: “We have four parliamentarians from Sindh and their resignations have already been received and after consultations a decision would be taken.”

About any derailment of democracy, he said their party was not in favour of martial law.

“We have reached the current situation of sit-ins after exhausting all available options to redress our grievances, including parliament and courts.”

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2014