PTI to file judicial reference against chief election commissioner
July 30, 2022
- PTI holds high-level party meeting in Islamabad.
- Party decides to take action against ECP.
- Punjab, KP assemblies to pass no-trust resolutions against ECP.
ISLAMABAD: PTI has decided to file a judicial reference against Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, sources told Geo News, as the party takes its tirade with the ECP chief up a notch.
The decision came during a high-level PTI meeting chaired by Imran Khan, where the party leaders reviewed the coalition government's recent meeting with the CEC and other Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) members.
Khan and other PTI leaders have repeatedly demanded that the chief election commissioner resign from his post and the ECP be reconstituted before the next general elections.
The meeting's participants also exchanged views over the ECP's attitude in the foreign funding case, according to sources.
The PTI also decided that provincial governments would also take action against the election commission, and the provincial assemblies — in Punjab and Kyber Pakhtunkhwa — would pass no-confidence resolutions against the ECP.
The meeting comes after Khan and his party have come under fire following a Financial Times report, which revealed that businessman Arif Naqvi's Cayman Island company, Wootton Cricket Ltd, provided funds to the PTI — which were of foreign origin.
The PTI has denied claims that it has received foreign funds and maintained that Overseas Pakistanis have donated to the party. But the government is persistently demanding that the ECP announce the verdict in the PTI's foreign funding case at the earliest — which was filed in 2014.
Just hours after the FT report, a delegation of representatives of the ruling coalition Friday met the chief election commissioner and four members of the ECP.
They urged the ECP officials to announce the PTI foreign funding case verdict early and said it was the people’s right to know from whose agents the party had been taking money for politics.
