No intention to resign: Pakistan Chief Election Commissioner
Apr 24, 2022
Islamabad [Pakistan], April 24 : Pakistan Chief Election Commissioner Sikander Sultan Raja has said that he had no intention of submitting his resignation.
Speaking to a reporter, on Saturday, Raja said, "I have no intention of tendering my resignation," he said, adding that there was no valid reason to "think like that", Dawn newspaper reported.
Raja's statement came after former Prime Minister Imran Khan called for his resignation and said that the party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) believed him to be "biased". He also said that his party, PTI did not trust the Chief Election Commissioner, alleging that all his decisions are against their party.
Chief Election Commissioner said that he would continue working for the best interest of the country and will continue to do so, reported Dawn.
Last week, Imran Khan claimed that Raja's name was suggested by Pakistan's Army after a deadlock between the government and the opposition. He further suggested that the Chief Election Commissioner should be appointed through an independent body.
This statement came while he was speaking to journalists at his Bani Gala residence.
Speaking at the rally held in Lahore on Thursday, Imran Khan had reiterated allegations of Raja being biased, stating that his leanings were so obvious that "he should be given a Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) office position", as reported by Dawn.
On other hand, PML-N claimed that Imran was targeting Chief Election Commissioner just ahead of the Election Commission of Pakistan's verdict in the PTI's foreign funding case.
Sikander Sultan Raja was appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner in January 2020. This is for the first time that a former bureaucrat was appointed to head the country's apex electoral body.
The decision was taken by a 12-member bipartisan parliamentary panel after several months of back and forth about key appointments to the ECP, which was later forwarded to the Prime Minister for his approval, according to Dawn.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, PTI filed a petition in Islamabad High Court against the alleged bias of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the prohibited funding case.
The party sought the high court's order to the ECP to announce their decision against the cases of 17 political parties within one month, ARY News reported.
"The election commission demonstrating bias in its proceedings against the PTI," the party pleaded in its petition. "The commission denying scrutiny of the accounts of 17 political parties," the party said.
"The PTI is an affected party of the conduct of the election commission. The election commission should be ordered to scrutinize accounts of 17 political parties," it pleads.
