PTI seeks to punish PM for Arsalan’s move against Khan

• PTI lawmakers Murad Saeed approach ECP for premier’s disqualification, alleging that he is misusing his powers to benefit his family and is therefore neither ‘sadiq’ nor ‘ameen’

ISLAMABAD

STAFF REPORT

In a political display of pinch-and-run in the name of fair play and justice, a Pandora’s box of testing the “sadaaqat and amaanat” (honesty and trustworthiness) of the country’s leading politicians has been opened with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has raised its fingers against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, seeking his disqualification, ostensibly in a tit-for-tat move against Arsalan Iftikhar’s accusation against their party chief Imran Khan.

Wednesday saw two PTI members of the National Assembly (MNAs), Ali Muhammad Khan and Murad Saeed, telling the journalists outside the ECP office that they had filed an application, seeking the disqualification of Prime Minister Sharif from parliament.

The PTI members also sought copy of Sharif’s nomination papers, contending that the premier had concealed details of his assets and thus did not qualify as “saadiq and ameen” (honest and trustworthy) under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution. The PTI members not only claimed that the premier was “misusing his powers to benefit his family”, they also called him a “defaulter” in the Asghar Khan case. Sharif has been accused of involvement in receiving monetary favours from intelligence agencies in order to rig the 1990 elections against the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Saeed alleged that Sharif brokered a deal with former president Pervez Musharraf to go abroad when his government was toppled during the 1999 coup, and further accused him of lying to the nation.

Yesterday’s was the second such application of the week as earlier, former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Chaudhry’s son Arsalan Iftikhar had sought PTI chief Imran Khan’s disqualification from the National Assembly, criticising him of not being “saadiq and ameen” as he had not disclosed his “love child” in the nomination papers submitted to the ECP. He claimed that Khan did not fulfil the criteria for being a representative of the people, as set in articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

Interestingly, a senior PTI official said that the party had evidence that Arsalan, who has rolled up his sleeves against Khan, has the tacit support of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and that the ruling party was trying to prevent Imran Khan from marching to the capital on August 14.