<\/p>\n
PTI leader Barrister Gohar Ali Khan on Monday announced that party-backed independent candidates \u2014 who emerged victorious in the Centre, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the 2024 general elections \u2014 would join right-wing party Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) as part of their parliamentary strategy.<\/p>\n
He addressed the media in Islamabad today alongside party leaders Raoof Hasan, PTI PM candidate Omar Ayub Khan, SIC Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza and Majlis Wahadat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) Secretary General Allama Raja Nasir Abbas.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur candidates have submitted their affidavits with us and with their consent today we are announcing that PTI-supported independents are joining the Sunni Ittehad Council,\u201d Barrister Gohar said.<\/p>\n
He made it clear that the party reached a \u201cformal agreement\u201d with the SIC, and it would be submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are 70 reserved seats in the National Assembly and there are 227 reserved seats in the entire country,\u201d he said. \u201cThese seats are only provided to political parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, to protect our reserved seats and provide the cover to our members, we have reached a formal agreement under which all our candidates have joined the party and we will present this documentation before the ECP,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gohar said a request would also be filed in the ECP regarding the allocation of reserved seats as per the party strength and law.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe claim that the PTI has won 180 National Assembly seats,\u201d he said, adding that all the independent candidates contested the polls on PTI tickets and were supported by the party.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully, they have won in a big number in all provinces [\u2026] of these only three have been notified yet,\u201d Barrister Gohar said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Ayub said his party wanted unity in the country and therefore party-backed candidates decided to join the SIC in the Centre and all provinces.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is because the quota of reserved seats lies with political parties. Coming together with the Sunni Ittehad Council would increase the PTI\u2019s strength in the National Assembly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the light of the explosive rigging allegations<\/a> of former Rawalpindi commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha, Ayub said the PTI had demanded that party-supported candidates should be declared \u201creturned candidates\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had also said that the MQM-P stole PTI\u2019s mandate in Karachi and Hyderabad,\u201d he said, adding that a similar case also persisted in Peshawar.<\/p>\n Ayub added that after joining the SIC, the PTI would form governments. \u201cOur first job would be to set free Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Parvez Elahi and all our senior leadership,\u201d he vowed.<\/p>\n He also lauded and thanked the MWM for the support it provided to the Imran Khan-led party.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, SIC\u2019s Hafiz Raza said his party\u2019s alliance with the PTI dates back nearly eight years.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the way PTI\u2019s \u2018bat\u2019 was taken just a few days before elections [\u2026] I want to clarify that this is not a \u2018single-handed\u2019 decision. It includes the approval of PTI leadership and Imran Khan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Raza added that SIC and MWM were two parties that had always opposed sectarian violence and did not believe in militancy. \u201cWe have a clear stance on banned outfits,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to clarify one more thing that our support of Imran Khan and the PTI is unconditional and without any demand,\u201d the SIC leader said. \u201cI want to make it clear, in black and white, that the policy will be of the PTI and Imran Khan sahib.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PTI leader Barrister Gohar Ali Khan on Monday announced that party-backed independent candidates \u2014 who emerged victorious in the Centre, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the 2024 general elections \u2014 would join right-wing party Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) as part of their parliamentary strategy. He addressed the media in Islamabad today alongside party leaders Raoof […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/02\/19170759689754f.jpg?r=170936","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Policy to be decided by Imran and PTI, says Hafiz Hamid Raza<\/h2>\n