LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party leaders have called PTI chairman Imran Khan politically immature, saying despite the judicial commission’s report the general perception of rigging in 2013 election still exits.

“Court needs evidence. In rigging matter it is always difficult to present proof and the PTI failed to submit it in court. However, the general perception of rigging in elections still exists,” PPP Secretary-General Sardar Latif Khosa told Dawn here on Thursday.

He said the PPP also raised rigging allegations in the 2013 elections but unlike Imran Khan, it did not demand constitution of a judicial commission because solid evidence was required to prove systematic rigging.

Khosa said the government should now work on holding next elections through biometric system.

PPP South Punjab Vice-President Haider Zaman Qureshi said the political immaturity of Imran Khan and his legal team had resulted in “grant of ISO 9000 verification and certification to the PML-N government.”

“The PTI miserably failed to prove its rigging allegations. The Judicial Commission report has given a clean bill of health to the PML-N’s otherwise questionable government. Stories of 35 punctures were sensational and meant to gain political mileage as was the evidence before the commission,” he said.

Qureshi said time would tell that an effective and responsible role as opposition was played by the PPP and the PTI needed to learn a lot and put its own house in order and control corruption and nepotism within the party.

“The JC report is a charge sheet of the PTI leadership’s incompetence and gives the PML-N a fresh mandate to govern and plunder for the next three years,” Qureshi said.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2015

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