PTI chief submits reply to objections to his candidacy

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan’s counsel submitted Monday before the returning officer a reply to objections to his candidacy for the upcoming general election for Islamabad’s NA-53 constituency.

The objections were filed by a Pakistan Justice and Democratic Party candidate, Abdul Wahab Baloch, challenging Imran’s credentials to contest the elections, citing Article 62 of the Constitution.

The reply, which was submitted by the assistant lawyer of Babar Awan, stated that the objections to Imran’s candidacy were baseless, concocted and based on fraud, and the documents were not even attested. The counsel contended in the reply that the objections to Imran consisted of photo copies, which were not attested. The reply insisted

that the objections were merely allegations, having no substance.

The PTI chairman maintained that there was a legal mechanism of sending documents abroad. The reply said that the papers, containing objections could not even be used for pakoras (cookies). The objections have been submitted over Photostat documents and have yet to be verified and hence fall in the ambit of forgery.

Earlier, PTI chief Imran Khan and his counsel, Babar Awan, excused from appearing before returning officers for the scrutiny of his nomination papers for NA-53 (Islamabad) and sought exemption as he was to appear before the returning officer in Lahore in a similar matter. Dr Awan has been asked by the returning officer to appear on Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, the returning officer asked former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s lawyer to submit details of his tax returns of financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16 by Tuesday, being the last date of scrutiny.

A candidate contesting from the constituency, Makhdoom Niaz, has challenged Gulalai’s nomination papers claiming she was neither ‘Sadiq’ nor ‘Ameen’ because she failed in presenting proof to back her harassment allegations against Imran Khan.

She also did not register a case against the PTI chairman; hence, she should be disqualified on the grounds that she is not Sadiq and Ameen, Niaz claimed. The candidate further said that Gulalai did not care about the people; she only wanted to go up against Imran in the polls.

Gulalai submitted a written response to the objections in which she clarified that a committee was formed to probe the harassment allegations and she appeared before the committee but Imran did not turn up.