Former water resources minister Faisal Vawda has said that PTI Chairman Imran Khan would not be able to contest the general elections, which are due on February 8, due to cases registered against him.
“I don’t see the PTI chairman contesting elections worldly and legally,” he said in an interview with Shaukat Piracha on his show Rubaroo which was aired on Aaj News on Friday.
Vawda, who was once called PTI’s commando by former Sindh governor Imran Ismail, got kicked out of the party for not responding to the show-cause notice within the stipulated timeline on October 29, 2022.
Two months later, he resigned from the Senate. The development had come after the Supreme Court revoked his lifetime disqualification.
On Friday, he said that there were many “ifs and buts” on Khan’s participation and the party’s role in the polls. “Relatively, I don’t see that also happening the way everybody is expecting.”
He was of the view that the tag of “disqualification” with any politician barred them from going to the public. According to Vawda, the cipher case against the former prime minister was an “open and shut case”. He claimed that many cases would be registered against him.
The former minister accused Khan of being egoistic, saying that “man proposes, God disposes”.
When asked about his past experience, he spoke about the party’s dealing with the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan which had staged a sit-in during the PTI tenure.
Without mentioning any names or substantiating his claims, he said that a minister begged the TLP leaders and there was a demand for Rs2 billion. He claimed that everyone knew the “mastermind” of the 2017 Faizabad sit-in.
His comment was made in the context of the Supreme Court’s proceedings into the case where the three-member bench of the apex court wanted to find out who the mastermind was behind the sit-in, which choked the entry point of Islamabad.
Vawda reiterated his claims that the May 9 events were staged to stop the appointments of incumbent army chief and chief justice of Pakistan.
He expressed hope that the SC’s decision to declare the military trials of civilians arrested in the wake of violent protests in the country on May 9 to be null and void would be reverted.
