LAHORE: PML-N stalwart Javed Latif on Saturday “advised against running election campaign” for PTI, saying verdicts were issued against his party leadership in the past to please someone.
Javed Latif’s comment comes in the aftermath of the recent orders and comments passed by courts, which he described as ‘favouritism.’
Talking to reporters here, Latif said the PTI wanted to make the elections controversial and was aiming at getting a judgment which could achieve the aim.
He stressed that the polls scheduled for February 8 were vital to ensure economic stability, warning that any failure to carry out the basic democratic exercise on the given date would only add to the uncertainty and economic meltdown in the country.
Latif reminded the people that the PML-N didn’t enjoy a level-playing field in 2018 and no one had raised the issue back then.
“Change the Constitution, if someone says May 9 [violence] isn’t a crime,” he remarked.
He recalled that the PML-N had contested the Senate polls without party symbol – a development after the Supreme Court stripped the party candidates of their right. “Someone is being declared innocent nowadays,” Latif remarked in a ‘veiled reference to Justice Athar Minallah’s comment during a hearing’.
The PML-N leader questioned why the events related to the May 9 violence were being swept under the carpet, saying the nation must be informed about the “origin of facilitators.”
On Thursday, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif had said balance was being tilted towards the ‘blue-eyed’ while referring to the PTI founding chairman – and described the Peshawar High Court (PHC) ruling on the PTI symbol “bat” as an attack on the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
Similarly, PML-N Senior Vice-President Maryam Nawaz blasted the PHC orders passed by a single-member bench. “Fake and fraudulent intra-party elections [of PTI] have been declared ‘halal’. The ruling is the victory of the selection, but not the election.”
“Those who seek a level-playing field are not ready to give the same to anybody within their party,” she remarked and added that the jailed PTI founder had stolen the mandate of his own party.
On the other hand, JUI-F emir Maulana Fazlur Rehman pointed to the attempts to create an atmosphere of “judicial martial law” in the country and mentioned that the PHC judge was a close relative of a PTI candidate.
