CHARSADDA: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leaders have said contesting elections is their legal and constitutional right and nobody can dare prevent them from taking part in the Feb 8, 2024 polls.

Addressing a workers’ convention, which later turned into a rally at the residence of former MNA and PTI core committee member Fazal Mohammad Khan in Shiekhabad area here on Friday, Sher Afzal Marwat, the party chairman’s lawyer, and Fazal Mohammad claimed Imran Khan was the most popular leader of the country.

They said it was their democratic right to contest elections and no one could stop them from doing so. The PTI leaders said the party would not allow anyone to steal the mandate of millions of Pakistanis.

They insisted that PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif was not acceptable to the people, who would not allow him to come to power through backdoor.

PTI leaders Hamza Naseer Mohammad Khan, Arshad Umarzai, Khalid Khan Mohmand, Anwar Taj, Jahangir Raza and others were also present. A large number of PTI workers participated in the convention.

On the occasion, Sher Afzal Advocate said after May 9 incidents, PTI workers were treated inhumanely, adding party workers, including women, were subjected to cruelty and were locked up in jails.

He added thousands of party leaders and workers were detained, but no politician dared to speak up against the state’s ‘highhandedness’.

Mr Marwat said PTI would win coming elections with two-thirds majority if polls were held in a fair and transparent manner.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2023