Fawad Chaudhry demands ECP to disqualify Yousuf Raza Gilani from Senate Elections

The incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has decided to file a reference against Yousuf Raza Gilani with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and demands him to be disqualified ahead of the Senate Elections 2021.

Addressing a presser today (Tuesday) outside the ECP, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said, “We were here to file a reference but the ECP was closed for the day. We will submit [the reference] in the morning.”

Referring to the viral video of Ali Haider Gilani ‘buying votes’, Chaudhry said, “I hope the Chief Election Commissioner will take notice of the video. This is why we were saying the Supreme Court decision gives the ECP the chance to play its role in making Senate elections transparent in Pakistan.”

“The SC gave a clear order to the ECP to make use of technology to eradicate horse-trading in Senate polls. It is highly unfortunate the Election Commission decided not to change the method this time,” he added.

The minister said the video “proves the ECP’s point of view wrong”.

He further added, “It can’t be that rigging, corruption, horse-trading and throwing money around be allowed this time but we will stop it the next time. This was a very weak argument and the video proves it.”

Earlier in a day, an alleged video of Ali Haider Gilani, a PDM candidate for Senate elections, is doing rounds all over social media ahead of the Senate polls 2021. The video caused a stir among all political parties. 

The video of Ali Haider Gilani, son of Yousuf Raza Gilani, was recorded a week back. It showed that he was talking about ‘buying votes’ from PTI MPA.

In the video, the accused was guiding the PTI assembly member on how to waste votes.

Also Read

PTI Leaders Call For Strict Action From ECP After Ali Haider’s Video Scandal

An alleged video of Ali Haider Gilani, a PDM candidate for Senate...

Ali Haider Denies The Accusations

Ali Haider said that we have sought votes of conscience all our lives, we have never participated in buying and selling of votes, it is our right to seek votes from all members of the Assembly.

Referring to the video, Ali Haider Gilani further said that we were contacted by some PTI assembly members who said that they wanted to vote for Yousuf Raza Gilani instead of Hafeez Sheikh.

It should be noted that Ali Haider Gilani has been elected as a member of Punjab Assembly constituency PP-211 Multan One on a PPP ticket.

To curb buying and selling in the senate elections, the government enacted a presidential ordinance on open voting, which was challenged in the Supreme Court.