PTI to boycott Senate Chairman, Dy Chairman election: sources

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Core Committee has decided to boycott the Senate’s chairman and deputy chairman’s election declaring polls as unconstitutional, ARY News reported on Monday.

The party has also decided to challenge the Senate’s chairman and deputy chairman’s election in court.

The PTI core committee sources said that the house has been incomplete thus the election has been unconstitutional. “The election has been unconstitutional without election of senators in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” sources said.

“The house has been dysfunctional in absence of the chairman,” PTI sources argued. “The Senate Secretariat could not take decision except administrative matters.”

“The Secretary Senate could not himself interpret the constitution under pressure,” sources said.

“Without the Chairman Senate the upper house has been only a department,” sources said while demanding proceedings of violation of the constitution against those having hand in making the senate dysfunctional.

“It is the first instance in the democratic period of the country that the senate has been made inoperative,” sources added.

Earlier, PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) filed a petition at the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) seeking postponement of the election for the Senate chairman and deputy chairman owing to the absence of Senate election in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Lawyer Hamid Khan filed the plea on behalf of the SIC where the petitioner sought the ECP to immediately hold the election for 11 Senate seats in the province.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed SIC urged to postpone the Senate chairman and deputy chairman election scheduled for April 9, saying that the Electoral College was incomplete without the KP Senate election.

It is pertinent to mention that the provincial election commissioner on April 2 postponed the Senate elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa following the application of the opposition members.

The opposition members had moved the ECP as the dispute over the swearing-in of the KP Assembly’s opposition members elected to reserved seats remains unresolved.