ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to suspend National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq’s membership of the assembly if he continued to cause delay in adjudication of electoral dispute in NA-122 (Lahore).

Talking to newsmen after meeting Chief Election Commissioner retired Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan here on Monday, the PTI chief also called upon the ECP to order daily hearing of all poll petitions pending before election tribunals.

He claimed that the commission had powers to de-seat or suspend membership of a winning candidate found responsible for delaying hearing or a decision on an election petition filed against him.

He urged the Chief Election Commissioner to constitute task forces on electronic voting machines and voting right for overseas Pakistanis.

Mr Khan claimed that his party had evidence of electoral fraud in NA-122 which proved that the PML-N could not even rig the elections properly.

He said forensic tests had proved that signatures of presiding officers on two separate documents were different. A single person had affixed signatures of presiding officers at 20 polling stations, while there was no record of form 15 in 19 polling stations, he added.

The PTI chief said his party believed in independence of judiciary and it did not want to create hurdles in the way of the government keeping in view the security situation in the country.

He warned that the PTI would have no option but to take to the street if doors of justice were shut. “This is a war of Pakistan’s future,” he said.

Mr Khan called for an open voting in the upcoming Senate elections and said efforts would be made to ensure that the polls were not conducted through secret ballot.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2015

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