Imran's party demands CEC resignation over 'poll rigging'

ISLAMABAD: Jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's party on Tuesday demanded chief election commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja's immediate resignation for failing to hold "free and fair" elections after allegations of massive poll rigging emerged.
The 71-year-old's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said that the CEC had "no right to stay in the position for a single day".
Raja, a retired civil servant, was appointed as the head of the Election Commission in Jan 2020 by the govt of then-PM Khan. But Khan soon developed differences with him and began to criticise him. He doubled down on his criticism after the toppling of his govt in April 2022.
PTI chief Gohar Khan told media after meeting Khan in the Adiala Jail that the former PM asked him to demand the resignation of Raja. "After meeting Khan sahib today, the PTI demands that the CEC resign. He has no right to stay in the position for a single day," Barrister Gohar Khan said outside Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail, where the PTI founder has been jailed. Since CEC failed to perform his duties we demand the CEC to resign immediately so that all probes should be impartial and fair and according to the mandate of the people," he said.
He demanded that all the inquiries into poll discrepancies be impartial and without any interference.