Apologises to journalist over his behavior; says he can’t hear a word against Reham
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Friday said Imran said that people blamed him for continuously complaining about the rigging in elections rather than moving forward, but that the rigging remains the root cause for all the problems faced by the country.
“Issues faced by the country cannot be resolved till free and fair elections are conducted in the country,” he said. “The only time transparent elections were held in the country was in 1970. Elections held in 2013 witnessed a record level of rigging,” Khan claimed while addressing a press conference at the PTI Secretariat.
“As party leader, I lost by a margin of 8,500 votes, while my candidate Aleem Khan lost by 2,400 votes. Is Aleem Khan more popular than I am, no, I am more popular than him,” stated Khan while referring to the recently held by-polls in NA-122.
The PTI chief went on to say that “it is not a matter of who is more popular, but a case of how effective the PTI was in controlling the rigging in the recently held by-polls”.
Khan said that people are not able to punish the incumbent government through their votes as rigging prevents them from doing so.
“During the by-polls we were successful in reducing the level of rigging that was witnessed earlier in 2013, hence PML-N used a different tactic to rig the polls on technical grounds with NADRA’s assistance,” claimed the PTI chief.
Khan also alleged that PML-N held a survey in NA-122 prior to the by-polls, through which they deduced the number of voters for both PTI and PML-N. He claimed that voters who would have voted for PTI, were transferred out of the constituency while PML-N voters from outside the constituency were transferred into NA-122.
“After the survey was held, PML-N with NADRA’s assistance transferred our voters to another constituency and transferred PML-N supporters in to the constituency,” said Khan.
He said that if his political party had knowledge of the tactics to be used by PML-N in the latest round of by-polls, they would have effectively countered it, as PTI has learnt important lessons from the massive rigging of 2013 general elections.
“The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) only gave us five days to verify the voting lists and the associated Form A, which was simply not enough time to validate such a large number of voters,” Khan continued.
Khan praised the role played by Pakistan Army’s in ensuring that no rigging could be conducted inside polling stations due to their presence.
During the course of the press conference, Khan said that only NADRA could have assisted PML-N in achieving victory in NA-122, as NADRA was the only institution that could have transferred PTI votes out of the constituency.
TENDERS APOLOGY:
Imran Khan also tendered an apology over his behavior to the journalist, who infuriated him by asking a question about his split with Reham Khan.
“I greatly respect the journalists, however, I can’t listen a word against Reham Khan,” Imran said.
All Pakistan Unions of Press Clubs and other journalist bodies had demanded that Imran Khan should tender an apology for insulting a journalist, failing which journalists would boycott PTI and stage protests.
While addressing a press conference in Peshawar on Tuesday, Khan had lost his temper and attacked a journalist’s character when questioned about his ability to judge people around him.
Responding to the journalist Khan said that every society has some form of etiquette every individual has some dignity and some manners. Khan told the journalist that he should be ashamed of himself for asking questions about someone’s personal life. He said that in many households people go through painful trauma and by asking such a question, the journalist had not embarrassed him, but rather exposed this own mentality.