Former Pakistan Prime Minister and senior opposition leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has accused PM Imran Khan of receiving PKR 70 million (Rs 32 crore) from a businessman to make him a senator.
"Mohammad Abdul Qadir contested the Senate poll as an independent candidate on March 3 and secured votes from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and other parties. The PTI lawmakers voted for Qadir on Khan’s direction who had received PKR 700 million from him," said Abbasi, the senior vice president of main Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
Seeking answers from Khan for selling the Senate ticket, Abbasi said that even the ruling party's members are saying that this man was made a senator after he paid money to Khan.
Abbasi has requested the election commission to take notice of this selling of the senate seat by the prime minister to the business tycoon.
Interestingly, after Qadir won the seat as independent candidate Khan welcomed him into the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf despite strong Opposition from the party’s Balochistan leadership and zonal heads, who had earlier compelled the central leadership to withdraw a party ticket awarded to him.
The former prime minister said that there had been no comparison of the corruption committed by the Khan government with that of its predecessors, but the courts and the anti-corruption establishment were silent over it.
"The court should take a suo motu notice in such cases. Suo motu was taken against an elected premier (Nawaz Sharif) and he was removed from his office. People know what is happening today," he said.
Abbasi also asked the military establishment to stay away from politics.
"We want to believe what the DG ISPR (inter-services public relations) had said that the army has no involvement in politics. It should be like this. But what happened in the Senate polls and Prime Minister Khan’s vote of confidence, it negated that statement of the DG ISPR,” he said.
Recently, ISPR Director General Major General Babar Iftikhar categorically denied that the army was involved in politics.
Meanwhile, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz warned the military establishment against interfering in the Senate chairman election scheduled to be held on Friday.
Indirectly accusing the intelligence agencies, she said that her party's senators are receiving calls not to vote for the Opposition’s candidate Yousuf Raza Gilani for the slot of Senate chairman.
"Our senators are being called and asked not to vote for PDM (Pakistan Democratic Alliance) candidate. Some of them have recorded the evidence,” Maryam tweeted on Thursday.
The PDM is an alliance of 11 opposition parties.
(With inputs from PTI)
