Daily Times

The Punjab Assembly Sunday approved a motion seeking resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja. The assembly session began with Speaker Sibtain Khan in the chair. Sibtain administered the oath to his deput, Wasiq Qayyum. Qayyum was elected unopposed a day earlier after the opposition boycotted the polls. The Speaker told the assembly that his deputy was elected after no one else submitted their nomination papers. After the oath was administered, PTI lawmaker Syed Abbas Shah presented the motion against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s chief, which was later approved by the assembly. The motion calls on CEC Raja to resign from his post.

After the motion was passed, the Assembly was adjourned till August 15. The motion also called for holding free and fair elections in the country. The resolution demands that all political parties act to hold transparent elections in the country. The motion also claimed that Imran Khan’s government in the center was removed by an international conspiracy and that after Khan’s ouster the country plunged into a financial crisis.The PTI move against the ECP comes a day after the party decided to file a judicial reference against the chief election commissioner over his meeting with the government members.

PTI Information Secretary Farrukh Habib later issued a statement and said the party had made preparations for filing a disqualification reference with the SJC against the CEC. He said the CEC met the PDM leaders after having reserved a judgment in the prohibited funding case.

“By doing so, the chief election commissioner violated his oath, the code of conduct as well as his constitutional duty,” he charged, adding that instructions had been issued to the party’s legal team in this regard.