LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz yesterday accused the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of hatching a conspiracy to delay the February 8 general elections.

In a statement YESTERday, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said the PTI was conspiring to defer the general elections scheduled to be held on February 8 next year.

Referring to the PTI petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC) against hiring district returning officers (DROs) from bureaucracy, the PML-N president said the plea amounted to sabotaging people’s representation.

“The PTI’s petition in the high court is a plot to run away from the elections. PTI is hatching a conspiracy against the February 8 general elections just like cipher. As always, the PTI is applying double-standard and hypocritical policy here,” he said.

The former prime minister further said the PTI was filing petitions in the courts to postpone the polls, while publicly demanding to hold elections on time.

“Even in the 2018 elections, the bureaucracy had carried out the responsibility of DROs. Then the PTI did not object to bureaucratic DROs performing their duty,” he said adding that if the elections of February 8, 2024 were delayed, the PTI would be responsible.

Shehbaz said the PTI had adopted different stances on the cipher controversy in public and during the investigation. "now the PTI has adopted the same hypocrisy elections." He blamed the PTI for plotting “a similar conspiracy related to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme”.

He said the PTI wanted political instability by creating constitutional crisis in the country. The PTI did not want the country to be economically strong and people's economic problems to end, he maintained.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has stopped training of district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs) who were appointed for the upcoming general elections following the LHC order.

A spokesperson for the ECP yesterday announced through a notification that the commission had directed to stop the training of DROs and ROs on the LHC order.

Published in The Daily National Courier, December, 15 2023

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