Karachi: Home Minister Rana Sanaullah on Thursday indicated that 50 PTI MLAs may vote against PML-N’s Hamza Shahbaz in the Punjab Assembly against party candidate Pervez Elahi. run-off election For the Chief Minister of Punjab that will be today (Friday).
Addressing a press conference after the federal cabinet meeting, Mr. Sanaullah said it is possible that PTI members who are “sensible” and whose “conscience is alive” will question Mr. Elahi’s selection as a candidate.
“PTI president Imran Khan had campaigned against Elahi and called him ‘the biggest dacoit of Punjab’ and now he is asking his party to vote for him,” the minister said.
MPs are also apprehensive at Mr. Elahi’s statement to “immediately dissolve the assembly” on Mr. Khan’s instructions, the minister said, an indication of the value Mr. Elahi attaches to the assembly.
Imran calls PTI CM candidate ‘biggest dacoit of Punjab’ admits PML-N workers did not campaign for party candidates in bypolls
The minister rejected PTI’s claims that the PML-N was “buying” its party members, while admitting that his party is “in touch with everyone” as it is their “political and democratic right”.
Stating that the PML-N “hates horse-trading politics, Mr. Sanaullah reminded the PTI president how independent candidates were brought into his party after the 2018 elections.
“Who spent the money on the people you welcomed to your party” [PTI] After the 2018 election. Who spent the money on this? whose plane was used [to bring people]?” He asked Mr. Khan who is alleging that the PML-N is using money to buy votes of PTI members.
Mr. Sanaullah said that although the PML-N feels that “Mr. Elahi has neither the authority nor ability to become chief minister”, the party will not engage in “buying and selling votes”.
Sanaullah, who is the president of the PML-N’s Punjab chapter, also defended his party’s recent defeat in the bypolls, saying the defeat “does not indicate the popularity of the PML-N”.
The popularity of any party cannot be estimated in 20 seats. The 20 people to whom we had given tickets carried the burden of Imran Khan’s incompetent and unpopular Punjab government.
He said the lack of development work had angered the constituents, many of whom were ministers in the Usman Buzdar-led government.
He, however, admitted that the party’s decision to give tickets to disgruntled PTI members was rejected by its workers and supporters, who had not wholeheartedly camped for these candidates.
Published in Dawn, July 22, 2022