LAHORE: Former PTI provincial minister Mian Aslam Iqbal, who has been in hiding since the May 9 arson attacks, says the party has reached a consensus to nominate Zulfi Bukhari and Hamid Khan as the party’s nominee for Senate.

Party leader Col (retired) Ijaz Minhas has been nominated as a covering candidate on general seats.

Dr Yasmin Rashid and Brig (retired) Musadiq would be women and technocrats seat candidates.

Mr Iqbal, in another tweet, announced that the party had also nominated Sardar Shahabuddin Khan Sehr, Ali Imtiaz Warraich and Ahmad Mujtaba for Punjab Assembly finance committee.

Mian Aslam Iqbal has strongly criticized Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz for demanding the replacement of CM’s bullet-proof car’s tyres. He stated that the chief minister office had requested the finance department to release Rs27.3 million supplementary budget during the current financial year.

YASMIN: PTI Central Punjab President Dr Yasmin Rashid says incumbent rulers have rendered the courts a laughing stock by denying meetings with Imran Khan, despite repeated court instructions.

In a written and signed statement issued on Thursday, Dr Rashid highlighted that lawlessness has reached unprecedented levels.

The PTI leader said that mobile and internet services were suspended under the pretext of combating terrorism, enabling historic rigging in the Feb 8 general elections. Dr Rashid noted that when the Rawalpindi division commissioner exposed mass rigging in the elections, the government suspended the X service to quell public backlash. As of now, the X service has yet to be restored.

Incarcerated PTI Central President Parvez Elahi says the ban on meetings in Adiala Jail is unconstitutional.

He told reporters on his appearance in the FIA court of Lahore that the PTI would protest nationwide until the return of its mandate, all the opposition parties would be seen on one platform very soon against election rigging.

Mr Elahi said the Form 45 would eventually become a noose for the bogus rulers and added that the people’s mandate was being humiliated by including vote stealers in the federal and provincial cabinets. He said the PML-N was doing the politics of revenge, not reconciliation.

PROTEST: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has decided to continue its path forward through peaceful protests, countering the incumbent government’s calls to “move forward” while steadfastly defending the people’s mandate embodied in the party’s founder chairman, Imran Khan.

PTI Central Punjab general secretary Hammad Azhar took to Twitter to denounce the notion of “moving forward” and legitimizing people who suffered electoral defeats and witnessed their parties’ demise in the polls.

“Let’s be very clear; only a fool can assume that beneficiaries of rigging will ever want to return the people’s mandate as a result of any negotiated political settlement,” he said.In another tweet, Mr Azhar stated Nawaz Sharif’s sons Hussain and Hassan were declared absconders five years ago but when they landed at the Lahore airport, they were not arrested but given protocol.

Later, he stated in a tweet, arrest warrants were also cancelled and police did not arrest them in any other case.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2024