Tariq Saeed Peshawar
Reiterating that the Election Commission of Pakistan was repeatedly resorting to constitutional violations, the Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Gandapur has said that lawmakers elected on reserved seats won’t be allowed to take the oath.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chief Minister made the announcement after the Senate elections were postponed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by the ECP after it was moved by the opposition parties in the wake of their ongoing stand-off with the government over the oath-taking issue. “We will never compromise on our constitutional right and those who became assembly members illegally will not be allowed to take oath,” Gandapur declared while speaking to the media outside the KP Assembly on Tuesday.
Pakistan People’s Party’s Ahmad Karim Kundi, in a plea filed with the commission, had said that 25 of his party’s members have not yet been sworn in and requested that the polls be postponed.
In response to the postponement of polls, the chief minister, while lamenting the allocation of reserved seats to other political parties, said that the Constitution was “repeatedly being violated”.
“We will fight this and will not back down,” Gandapur said, further stressing that the party would “strongly protest” against the move. He further announced that a resolution would be passed regarding the future course of action in the meeting of the parliamentary party in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly. CM Gandapur asked how their seats could be given to someone else. He also announced that they would not be given women’s seats to opponent parties in any case. KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati, it may be mentioned, had on Monday filed a review plea in the Peshawar High Court over the directions issued by the court to administer the oath to the lawmakers elected on reserved seats.
Meanwhile, reacting to the development, KP Assembly Opposition leader Ibadullah Khan fired a broadside at the KP chief minister saying that “these people neither obey the courts nor the ECP […] but only obey ‘prisoner 804’ (a reference to the incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan)”.
