Imran backs Senate polls through show of hands

ISLAMABAD: The Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, on Tuesday demanded that Senate voting should be held through a’show of hands’ and insisted that it should not be confined to an announcement merely.
The PTI chairman was confident enough to declare that the government would soon die because of rigging in the 2013 elections and “God willing, 2015 will be the year of fresh general elections.” He rejected a request from the government to return to the assemblies.
Before leaving for Dubai, where an investment conference has been organised for investors to come to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Imran told media persons outside his Bani Gala residence that no one should be in doubt that the PTI would step back from its demand for the constitution of a judicial commission on the 2013 polls.
The PTI chief emphasised the decision of showing hands should not be limited to an announcement and it should be translated into reality. He wondered how a person, who becomes a senator by spending millions, would serve the masses. Imran noted the PML-N government had taken a few good steps but the decision to enact a legislation for the change of voting in the Senate was a good one.
He claimed to have been offered Rs150 million for the award of PTI ticket, which he outrightly rejected.Imran made it clear that they would not go to parliament unless their demand on the commission was fulfilled and warned that they would again take to the roads if justice was not provided to them with regard to the general elections.
The PTI chief asserted that the last general elections were the worst rigged and the PML-N was the main beneficiary of it. He vowed to ‘gherao’ those who were the ‘merchants of conscience’. He again claimed that some seven million bogus votes were polled in the last elections and that they would prove it before the judicial commission.
Replying to questions, Imran said that they had organised an investment conference in Dubai, as investors were not ready to come to Pakistan because of security reasons.The PTI chairman said that funds meant for the IDPs would be spent on their education, health, employment and other facilities.
Online adds: Senior lawyer Hamid Khan said the proposal floated by the PML-N with regard to holding the Senate polls through a show of hands was illegal and unconstitutional.
He said the proposal was unconstitutional and had no legal standing.“Being a legal expert, I am making it clear this procedure will be wrong,” he remarked.To a question, he said the PTI was a political party and he was not talking about what procedure it adopted in this connection. “My stance is purely of a legal expert,” he added.