Imran Khan: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and former prime minister Imran Khan will contest National Assembly bypoll from all 33 vacant seats, his party has announced.
PTI vice-chairman and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said this at a press conference on Sunday evening. He said the party’s core committee took the decision during its meeting.
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Imran Khan to be sole candidate
“Imran Khan will be PTI’s sole candidate in all 33 parliamentary seats. The decision was taken in the party’s core committee meeting which was presided over by Khan at Zaman Park Lahore on Sunday,” Qureshi said.
On Friday, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced that by-polls to 33 seats of the National Assembly will held on March 16.
Khan’s party resigned en masse from the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan parliament, following his ouster from power in April last in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.
Resignations not accepted
However, Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf did not accept their resignations and said he needed to individually verify if the lawmakers were resigning of their own accord.
Finally last month, Ashraf accepted the resignations of 35 PTI lawmakers. The ECP then de-notified them.
Subsequently, the speaker also accepted another 35 (and ECP de-notified them), and the remaining 43 resignations of PTI lawmakers after Khan announced returning to the National Assembly to put Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to the test of a vote of confidence.
The ECP has yet to de-notify 43 PTI lawmakers. If the ECP de-notifies the remaining 43 PTI lawmakers, Khan’s party would be virtually wiped out of the National Assembly.
Imran contested eight parliamentary seats in October after the speaker accepted 11 resignations of the PTI lawmakers. Khan won six of them.
PDM may not contest
The federal coalition of nine parties (Pakistan Democratic Movement) has said it might not take part in the bypolls. If that happens, PTI may grab all seats without any problem.
Of the 33 by-polls in lower house seats, 12 will be held in Punjab province, eight in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three in Islamabad, nine in Sindh, and one in Balochistan.
Earlier this month, PTI also dissolved the provincial assemblies in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces where his party was in power, to push the Shehbaz Sharif government to call for snap polls.
PTI has already moved the court against the caretaker chief minister governor for not giving the election date in Punjab. After the dissolution of an assembly, the caretaker setup has to hold polls within 90 days under the constitution.
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