ISLAMABAD: The Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, said on Friday that his party’s senators would not vote for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidates for the chairmanship of the Senate, both being the parties of status quo. Imran charged that unfortunately money would again play a key role at the time of the election of Senate chairman.The PTI chief said the Senate tickets were up for sale in Pakistan. However, he said, the PTI lawmakers were not sold during the Senate elections. The visibly-relieved Imran, who had even threatened to dissolve the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly ahead of the Senate polls if his MPAs voted against the party line, during a news conference here greeted KP Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and the PTI legislators for toeing the party line and rejecting offers of millions of rupees. Imran was flanked by Khattak, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Dr Shireen Mazari and other party leaders. The PTI chief will soon host a sumptuous meal for the party lawmakers to mark their loyalty to the party and not compromising on their conscience.He said no one should misunderstand that they would sit back and announced to take to the streets after a month following Nadra’s report on NA-122. He alleged that the National Assembly speaker had won on account of bogus votes. He announced to meet the Nadra chairman next week on the rigging issue. “We have enough street power to bring the government to a grinding halt and we intend to do that if the government does not form the judicial commission. Enough is enough,” he maintained. He said there was a lot for the ruling PML-N to ponder about: how come the PPP’s Nadeem Afzal Chan got so many votes and how Khanzada Khan won from KP. Imran alleged that both Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari knew about horse-trading and still staged a drama about the 22nd Constitutional Amendment and the prime minister got a presidential order for Fata MNAs issued and went to Saudi Arabia. He alleged that both had always made wealth after coming to power. He said the PTI had made a promise to the nation to change the system and their landmark sit-in was part of the initiative.Replying to questions, he justified contesting the Senate elections from KP and said he was even today ready to form a commission to probe the polls in the province, if anyone had doubts. The PTI chief again alleged that some seven million bogus votes were polled by the PML-N in the Punjab and hence its mandate was fake.He claimed that the PML-N was bound to face a defeat in the upcoming elections in AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan and it was because of this fear that a presidential order was issued late at night ahead of the Senate elections, as it foresaw defeat in winning the seat of the Senate chairman. About the possibility of cricketer Shahid Afridi having offered him Rs150 million for the Senate ticket, Imran regretted that Afridi’s name was in circulation wrongly. He said the Pakistani, who had made the offer, lived abroad but was on Pakistan’s visit and he thought may be this was the way of making way to parliament but he made the offer for the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital. Khattak said that even 15 days before the Senate polls, cash was making rounds and two sons and a father, who are known businessmen, wanted to transform politics into business with the help of money but his party’s lawmakers foiled all such ploys.
