Punjab PTI to contact PPP, JI for presidential elections
PAKISTAN Tehreek-e-Insaf Punjab leadership has decided to contact Pakistan People’s Party and Jamaat-e-Islami to garner their support for Justice (R) Wajih-ud-Din, the PTI candidate nominated for the slot of President.
The decision was taken in the meeting of PTI Parliamentary party chaired by Opposition leader in PA Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed which discussed in detail the strategy for Presidential polls.
This is noteworthy that at central level, contacts are already underway between PPP and PTI to evolve a joint strategy against PML-N candidate.
The PA parliamentary meeting was also attended by MPAs, including Mian Aslam Iqbal, Dr Nosheen Hamid, Murad Raas, Raja Rashid Hafeez and others.
The meeting decided to launch contact campaign in connection with the Presidential polls and convince PPP and JI to support the candidate nominated by Tehreek-e-Insaf. In Punjab Assembly, PTI comprises of 26 MPAs followed by 8 of PML-Q, 6 of PPP and one of Jamaat-e-Islami. PPP, the major share holder in Senate and Opposition party in National Assembly with just a few seats in Punjab has nominated Raza Rabbani for the slot of President.
According to Election Commission of Pakistan’s figures, 1,123 members will participate in the Presidential elections to be held on August 30.
The Presidential electoral college comprises of Senate (104 members), National Assembly (342) members and all the four provincial assemblies.
The members of Senate, NA and Balochistan Assembly will cast their votes according to the ratio of one person, one vote. On the other hand, around six members of Punjab Assembly constitute one vote for the Presidential electoral college and PTI, in case doesn’t boycott the election, may get around five votes from PA and with the support of PPP and PML-Q, it may achieve additional two or three votes. Nevertheless, this will not pose any threat to the PML-N candidate who is likely to win quite comfortably but PTI wants to resist unopposed victory of the ruling party candidate from the House, said a senior member from Punjab.
Addressing the meeting, Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed said in democracy, doors are never closed for negotiations and PTI would contact the opposition parties to garner their support for the party candidate.
Besides, the meeting also reiterated the party stance to resist Punjab government from passing the Local Government Act of its choice. Opposition leader in PA and other party members termed this act a reversal of Zia-ul-Haq’s local body system which wasn’t accepted to the people.
The Punjab government is expected to lay the Local Government Bill 2013 today (Friday).