PTI MPAs step forward to deny horse-trading allegations

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PESHAWAR: Rejecting the party chief’s horse-trading charge against them, some PTI MPAs insisted that they did not sell their votes in the recent Senate elections.

They claimed that they had fallen victim to conspiracies within the party and were ready for any impartial probe.

Addressing separate news conferences at the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, PTI MPAs Fozia Bibi from Chitral and Meraj Humayun said that they had supported PTI candidates in the Senate elections.

Without naming names, Fozia Bibi alleged that some people within the party had conspired against her and were involved in her character assassination. She said that she had planned to sue some online publications for filing false reports against her.

The MPA said that she had written a letter to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) seeking probe into the matter.

She alleged that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and his “cronies had ensnared” her for saving their own faces on the matter.

Fozia demanded of the party chairman to refer the matter to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for probe and said that those found guilty of horse-trading should be punished. She said that she was ready to prove her innocence on oath.

MPA Meraj Humayun also rejected the horse-trading allegation and said that she and her family and friends were shocked by the charge, which also damaged her political reputation.

“I joined the PTI after the Senate elections, which was held on March 3, therefore, PTI has no right to level such serious corruption allegation against me because I was not bound to vote for the PTI candidate at that time,” she said. She wondered why her name was put on the PTI panel.

“I had voted for the PTI candidate due to the alliance between the PTI and QWP in the Senate polls. I had not only voted for QWP candidate Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli but also voted for the PTI candidate,” she said. Meraj said the PTI leadership should have called her for clarification on the matter. She said that she would decide the future course of action after receiving the show cause notice from PTI.

CONSPIRACY HATCHED:

PTI MPA from Haripur Faisal Zaman on Thursday denied horse-trading charge and said that he did not sell his vote in the Senate elections and instead he voted for the party nominee Ayub Afridi.

During a news conference at the Haripur Press Club, he held a copy of the Holy Quran in his hands and said on oath that he did not sell his vote in the Senate polls.

He said that the horse-trading charge had virtually destroyed his political career and his family’s honour.

“I belong to a well-off family, which spends millions of rupees monthly on charity projects in Ghazi tehsil. It is against logic and my conscience that I would have opted to sell my conscience to someone for mere 20-30 million rupees,” he claimed and added that he was neither informed about any inquiry nor was he asked to prove his innocence.

Zaman said if he was accused of selling his vote, the party had every right to question him but he was kept in the dark about the news conference in which the party chief declared him as a vote seller. He said that a conspiracy was hatched against him by a lobby working within the PTI and a couple of people from Haripur.

He said that he would prove his innocence and would even move the court for the purpose if needed.

The MPA denied that CM Khattak was among those, who had orchestrated the vilification campaign against the MPAs. He said that if he failed to satisfy the party leadership, he would consult his supporters and contest the next elections as an independent candidate.

MPA TO MOVE COURT:

MPA Wajiuzaman Khan denied the Senate elections horse-trading charge against him and announced that he would take PTI chief Imran Khan to the court of law for defamation in that respect.

“I consider politics as worship and have never used my political position to make illegal money. I am going to the court against the false horse-trading allegation of the PTI chief against me,” he told reporters in Oghi on Thursday.

The MPA, who recently joined the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), said that PTI chief was surrounded by those, who were directly involved in horse-trading in the Senate elections.

“Imran is not ready to listen to the truth and is busy levelling baseless allegations against others,” he said.