PESHAWAR, Feb 4: Tehrik-i-Istiqlal has demanded of the government to withdraw the condition of graduation for contesting the election of National Assembly.

The demand was made by Rehmat Khan Verdag, a party leader at a Press conference here at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday.

He also demanded that the number of seats in the lower and upper houses of the parliament be increased by 100 per cent.

Under the 1973 Constitution, he said, the number of seats in the Senate, National and Provincial assemblies had been fixed on the basis of population.

Now after a passage of 29 years when the country’s population had doubled the number of seats in the lower and upper houses of the parliament should also be increased by 100 per cent. He said by this increase public’s access to its representatives.

He said under the present circumstances, people belonging to middle and lower middle class could not afford to contest National Assembly’s elections owing to huge expenses needed to run election campaign.

Besides, Mr Verdag, who has declared himself as party chief after Asghar Khan’s decision of merging the party into the newly-established party — Qaumi Jamhoori Party — led by his son Omar Asghar Khan, claimed that TI’s supreme council had expressed confidence in him and that he enjoyed the confidence of the party national council.