Three ECP members agree to step down

ISLAMABAD: Following mounting pressure by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), three members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday agreed to tender their resignations.
In the backdrop of the emerging situation, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar Raza Khan summoned an ECP meeting on Monday and three ECP members are likely to tender their resignations in the meeting.
According to a senior official, the ECP members apprised a meeting with the CEC of their reaction to the tone of PTI Chairman Imran Khan a day earlier. They said during the meeting, “Enough is enough. The PPP has also joined the campaign against us, and has begun to demand our resignations and we cannot create problems for the nation.”
They demanded of the CEC to defend their rights or accept their resignations.
It is said that one of the ECP members had written his resignation and two other members had also decided to step down.
The sources said that in reaction to the PTI-PPP unannounced nexus, the ECP members would tender their resignations to the CEC during the meeting on Monday as both the parties had shown their no-confidence on the ECP members and refused to contest the coming by-polls.
The ECP members, Justice (retd) Riaz Kiani from Punjab, Justice (retd) Shehzad Akbar Khan from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Justice (retd) Roshan Ali Essani from Sindh, in mutual contact decided to resign from their respective positions. ECP member from Balochistan Justice (retd) Fazlur Rehman is on leave due to the death of his son and he is not in contact with the other members in this regard.
The ECP members maintained that they did not want to get themselves entangled in the wrangling any more and did not want to create problems for the nation. In this context, they found no reason to remain on their positions. They said that they would submit their resignations, and if the CEC insisted and gave assurances of defending them, the situation might change.