Barrister Gohar says PTI-SIC merger serious and best decision

RAWALPINDI: After back-to-back protests led by overseas Pakistanis in the United States (US), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan dissociated himself from the ongoing overseas protests, clarifying that his party did not have any part in it in the recent demonstrations outside the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) headquarters.

“If overseas Pakistanis are making up something, then it would be their own decision,” Barrister Gohar said Saturday while speaking to the media outside the Adiala Jail.

It is noteworthy that several PTI workers from overseas chapter staged protests outside the IMF and WB headquarters in Washington against alleged irregularities in the 2024 general elections in Pakistan. The protest in the US was attended by former premier Khan’s ex-chief of staff Shahbaz Gill and PTI spokesperson in the United States, Sajjad Burki.

The demonstration — organised by “First Pakistan Global” — alleged that the PTI’s National Assembly seats were “reduced” to 90 from 180 in the general elections. The protests drew severe criticism from the Pakistani government at a time when the country was seeking another bailout package from the global lender to address its economic woes.

Responding to a question, the PTI chairman said that the party did not ask the IMF to stop disbursing financial aid to Pakistan; however, it admitted that the party urged the global lender’s to recall its commitments for free and fair elections and transparent allocations of its funds.

After reports of internal conflicts in PTI over alliance with the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), the politico made it clear that his party’s merger with the party was “serious and best decision” in circumstances prevailing at that time when PTI lost its “bat” symbol and was looking for options to secure its reserved seats. “Not only reserved seats, we also wanted to get protection from our independent candidates as merging with a political party would also stop defections,” said Gohar.

He reiterated that the PTI-SIC merger was the best decision taken after much deliberations.

Gohar pinned hopes on the Supreme Court (SC) to provide justice to the Imran-led party that had been rejected for being eligible to get reserved seats for women and minorities. He detailed that the PTI was eyeing a total of 80 seats, including 67 reserved seats for women and 11 for minorities. The lawyer-cum-politician also said that they would also seek interpretation of Article 51 of the Constitution from the top court to know about a party could get reserved seats more than the proportion of winning seats or not.

Gohar announced that the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) decision upholding the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) ruling to deny reserved seats to PTI would be challenged in the apex court.

On Thursday, the former ruling party faced a major blow as the PHC dismissed the PTI-backed SIC’s petition challenging the ECP’s ruling that denied reserved seats to the party. The court maintained that the “petitions were unanimously rejected”.