ISLAMABAD: In what appears to be a tit-for-tat move, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Thursday approached the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to seek details of assets of Prime Minister Imran Khan and Federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda which they had submitted with their nomination papers at the time of contesting the July 25 elections.

A three-member PPP delegation comprising party secretary general Farhatullah Babar, MNA Dr Nafeesa Shah and Punjab general secretary Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed met ECP Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Muhammad and also asked him to provide them details of the foreign funding case against the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) which had been filed by a party dissident Akbar S. Babar.

The move from the PPP came hours after PTI’s Sindh MPA Khurram Sherzaman filed an application with the ECP in Karachi, seeking the disqualification of PPP co-chairperson and former president Asif Ali Zardari for allegedly concealing his foreign assets.

Talking to Dawn, Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed said that the party planned to seek details of assets of Aleema Khanum, the sister of Prime Minister Imran Khan, from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), besides seeking details of the businesses of former secretary general of the PTI Jahangir Tareen from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in the next couple of days.

A party leader says details of assets of Aleema Khanum from FBR and Tareen’s from SECP will also be sought

Chaudhry Manzoor said that though details of assets of Mr Khan and Mr Vawda were available on the official website of the ECP, they wanted “certified copies” which were required for legal proceedings.

The PPP leader said that if the ECP and other institutions did not provide them the details, then the party would be justified in believing that, prima facie, all assets owned by Aleema Khanum and Mr Vawda and those in the name of the party actually belonged to Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Denying that the party had taken this step in response to the application filed by the PTI seeking Mr Zardari’s disqualification, he recalled that the party had been raising these issues for the past many months at every forum.

He said the future line of action in this regard would be announced by the legal team of the party.

Earlier, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari presided over a meeting of the party’s parliamentary group in the Parliament House.

Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, a spokesman for the PPP chairman, when contacted, said that in the meeting the participants mostly discussed matters related to the parliamentary proceedings.

He, however, said that in the meeting the party leaders expressed their concerns over the ongoing media trial of the opposition leaders by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the PTI.

Mr Khokhar said the party had decided to respond to the government’s “propaganda” in an effective manner and at every forum.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2018