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Thursday March 28, 2024

PTI did not make contact for NA speaker’s vote, says JI

ISLAMABAD: The parliamentarians of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) claim that the party’s top leadership asked them to cast their votes for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in the National Assembly speaker’s election if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) did not contact them.The JI MPs claim that they consulted

By Fakhar Durrani
November 10, 2015
ISLAMABAD: The parliamentarians of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) claim that the party’s top leadership asked them to cast their votes for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in the National Assembly speaker’s election if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) did not contact them.
The JI MPs claim that they consulted the party’s headquarters in Mansoora before casting their votes in favour of the PML-N candidate Ayaz Sadiq and the party leadership asked them to vote for the ruling party’s candidate rather than their coalition partner PTI’s candidate.
The JI MNA from Lower Dir Sahibzada Muhammad Yaqoob while talking to The News said the party’s votes in favour of the PML-N candidate would not affect the coalition in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as both the parties are well aware of the fact that they could not run without each other’s support in KP. Therefore, he said, this would not affect the coalition in KP.
“The PML-N leaders came to us before the speaker’s election and asked for JI’s vote for Ayaz Sadiq. On the other hand, the PTI did not even bother to contact us and ask for our votes for its candidate. However, even then we contacted the party’s top leadership to know for whom should we cast our votes. The party leadership asked us to cast the votes whomever we want,” commented Sahibzada Yaqoob.
“After consulting each other we decided that being custodianof the House, Ayaz Sadiq is the best choice because he runs the House’s business in a transparent manner and everyone was satisfied the way he runs the assembly. However, if the PML-N had any other candidate than Ayaz Sadiq, we would have reconsidered our choice,” Sahibzada said.
Had Ayaz Sadiq been elected unopposed, it would have been much better for the integrity of the House, said Sahibzada. He further said that the PTI wanted to contest the speaker’s election symbolically so that they could prove they are the opposition party. However, he said, they have not consulted any other party sitting on opposition benches.
The PTI realised it after the elections that it should have consulted its coalition partner and even they admitted it in the lobby that they should have consulted their coalition partners.
It is pertinent to mention here that the PTI candidate Shafqat Mehmood bagged 31 votes despite the fact it has total 33 MNAs in the National Assembly and one vote of Sheikh Rashid from Awami Muslim League which means three members of PTI did not cast their votes for their own party’s candidate. Similarly, another coalition partner of the PTI in KP Qaumi Watan Party also cast its vote in favour of PML-N instead of PTI’s candidate.