ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja, accusing him of violating his constitutional and legal duties and playing the role of an intermediary in the so-called “survey”. fraud.’
The PTI further insisted that not only CEC Raja should resign but also the members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
It alleged that they colluded to strip PTI-backed candidates of the mandate given to them by the people in the February 8 general election marred by widespread reports of vote rigging.
In a statement, PTI spokesperson Raoof Hasan demanded the resignation of CEC and ECP members amid widespread reports of vote rigging during the recently concluded polls.
According to PTI, the party was cruising with a lead of 170 seats in the National Assembly before the alleged rigging swung the pendulum in PML-N’s favour.
Party President Barrister Gohar Khan said the party intends to use legal avenues to highlight this manipulation and reclaim its stolen mandate.
This is not the first time that the PTI has demanded the resignation of the CEC as PTI founder chairman Imran Khan has demanded Raja’s resignation several times in the past, including over allegations that he had aligned himself with the PML-N. Imran even moved a no-confidence vote in the CEC after his party won 15 seats in a landslide in the by-elections held in 20 constituencies of Punjab in 2022.
On Sunday, a PTI spokesperson demanded the immediate resignation of the CEC and members of the election watchdog “who have been working as the main facilitators of daylight robbery of public mandate”.
Hasan said the CEC and ECP members have no right and moral justification to express their position as they have “completely failed in their constitutional and statutory duties”.
He added that they did not even respect or respect the constitution and laws.
He further said that CEC and ECP members “opened the door to violation of the constitution, violation of the law, taint of democracy and desecration of public mandate”.
Furthermore, the spokesman said the re-imposition of PDM-2 on the nation through daylight robbery on a public mandate is unacceptable and intolerable.
While demanding the immediate resignation of the CEC and ECP members, he said that neither the people nor the PTI would accept any malicious conspiracy that might happen. Hasan strongly rejected the ongoing insidious attempts and “shameful drama to manipulate the results to convert PTI’s overwhelming majority into a minority to re-impose the people’s rejected PDM-2” on the nation.
In a strongly worded statement, Hasan vehemently condemned the reprehensible plot to deprive the people of their true and real representatives, saying efforts were underway to allegedly steal the public mandate and re-impose a “gang of criminals on the nation”.
Also read: Caretaker govt fulfilled its constitutional responsibility: Solangi
He made it clear that the people of the country will not accept any such nefarious plan and will protect and defend their mandate come what may.
He said PTI as the largest and most popular party in the country with representation in all four provinces and a decisive public mandate has the basic constitutional, democratic, moral and political right to form the government.
He recalled that the “rejected and incompetent PDM group” was responsible for the prevailing economic and administrative disaster in Pakistan. He went on to say that the inflation-weary people of the country rejected the PTI opponents by retaliating three days ago through their electoral power by giving them a crushing drubbing.
The statement said the 16-month inept PDM government had compounded various public misery and said it had spiked inflation and destroyed a booming economy.
