Imran misleading masses through media trial: Pervaiz

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information Senator Pervaiz Rashid Friday said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan is continuing his tradition of misleading the people through media trial about 2013 the general elections.
Addressing a joint press conference with Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rehman, and MNAs Talal Chaudhry and Danial Aziz here, the minister said that instead of proving the allegations raised at the container, the PTI had even not mentioned the same before the inquiry commission. “Such baseless allegations cannot be proved in the courts,” he said.
He said that he had stopped replying to Imran Khan’s allegations and offered him ceasefire after the formation of the inquiry commission for probing allegations of electoral rigging. Such statements in his opinion, he said, were tantamount to an attempt to affect the proceedings of the commission, but Imran did not mend his attitude.
Pervaiz Rashid mentioned that when Najam Sethi appeared in the commission, the PTI legal team did not raise the question of so-called 35 punctures. “In courts one has to present solid and concrete evidence along with witnesses and lies do not work there,” he added.
He said that Najam Sethi had filed a suit against Imran over the allegations, but he did not appear in the court and was consequently fined for his absence. He said when Imran realised that a unilateral decision would be given against him, he appeared in the court and said that 35 punctures statement was based on his personal opinion.
The minister said that the Pukhtoon nation witnessed the worst day in its history on the day of local bodies elections breaking the record of even “Bacha Sakka” rule. On that day, he said, there was vote theft, rigging, killings, lawlessness, violence and instant protest demonstrations.
“Whenever elections are rigged or stolen people take to streets spontaneously and do not wait for the container to be painted after the span of a year,” he added.He said that the 2013 elections were free and fair. The people had not only accepted their results but also distributed sweets. The next day’s newspapers also carried good news about free and fair elections.
On the contrary, he said, when the LB elections were held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the next day’s papers were full of reports of chaos, rigging, violence and people’s anger.Pervaiz Rashid said that the inquiry commission was formed on Imran Khan’s demand but he did not have courage to go there and repeat the allegations he made on the container about printing of ballot papers from Urdu Bazaar or involvement of Justice (R) Ramday in rigging.
“Now Imran has started raising another baseless issue of missing Form 15,” he added.He said that the percentage of missing Form 15 of constituencies won by the PTI was 44.26 and of the PPP was 39.8 while in case of the PML-N it was only 28.28, almost half of the PTI percentage. “If the missing Form 15 was a crime of the winning candidates, then the PTI was the main culprit,” he added.
Pervaiz Rashid said that Imran Khan started the agitation and paralysed the national economy, attacked the state institutions, including the Parliament, and organised several rallies in which countless people lost their lives. He requested Imran to shun the politics of allegations and not to punish the people, who voted his party to power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and serve them during remaining three-year term. He also urged Imran to muster courage to face the problems like Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who boldly confronted the challenges of terrorism, energy crisis and economic melt-down.
“Now with the grace of the Almighty, law and order situation is far better than 2013, energy crisis has decreased and economic situation has considerably improved and credit for this goes to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.”
He said Imran should face the challenges directly instead of ruling indirectly from Bani Gala. He asked the PTI chief to change KP but not like the LB elections held recently.Replying to the questions of media persons, he said the issue of violating directives of the commission was raised in the commission and his counsel assured that he would not issue such statements but he repeated his allegations again.
He said the 2013 elections were more free, fair and transparent than all the polls held in Pakistan’s history. However, he said, there was scope for improvement and for this purpose the parliamentary committee was doing its work.