Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has claimed that at least 50 lawmakers from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) could vote against Parvez Elahi, their party’s candidate for the Punjab chief minister in the Punjab Assembly elections that are set to take place today.
Sanaullah issued these remarks during a press conference held on Thursday after the federal cabinet meeting. During the presser, he said that it is possible that members of the PTI who are ‘sensible’ and whose ‘conscience is alive’ will question Elahi’s selection as the candidate.
He added that the lawmakers are anxious about Parvez Elahi’s recent statement that he will ‘dissolve assemblies immediately’ if Imran Khan asks him to, claiming that they say this suggests how much he value he brings to the assembly.
“PTI chairman Imran Khan had campaigned against Elahi and called him ‘the biggest dacoit of Punjab’ and now he was asking his party to vote for him,” the minister said.
Sanaullah rejected claims made by the PTI that the PML-N was trying to buy off MPAs, saying that his party was ‘in contact with everyone’ as it was their ‘democratic and political right’.
The minister added, “Even though the PML-N thinks Parvez Elahi has the neither the right nor the capacity to become the chief minister, yet the party will not indulge in buying and selling of votes.”
