Syed Shibli Faraz, an MP from Imran Khan‘s party PTI said during a government session that Pakistan “should learn from India”. “Why we can’t conduct our own free and fair elections?” asked Pakistan leader while praising India’s smooth conduct of the one-month duration polls through EVMs without the allegations of the process being rigged being raised.
He further called out his own nation for always fighting this “war of legitimacy”. “This kind of thing has completely hollowed our political system,” added Faraz during his speech.
Pakistan’s 12th national general election on February 8 have been surrounded in controversies as multiple leaders have alleged rigging. The PTI emerged as the dominant party in the elections but fell short of majority. They also accused the polls of being rigged. Party leader and former PM Imran Khan, currently imprisoned, asserted last month that the national election in February was stolen from his party, labeling it as the “biggest robbery of a public mandate.” Speaking via video link from Adyala jail in Rawalpindi to the Supreme Court, Khan said, “The February 8 election was the biggest robbery of a public mandate.”
Maulana Fazalur Rehman, the chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), claimed that “the polls in 2024 were more rigged than the 2018 elections.”
This is not the first time, a Pakistan politician has praised India. Last month, MP Mustafa Kamal’s video hailing India’s economy and education system went viral. Faraz’s words echo Kamal’s sentiments as he emphasized the need for Pakistan to take lessons from India. “Today, the condition in Karachi is that, while the world is going to the moon, children are dying by falling into gutter in Karachi. On the same screen, there is news that India landed on the moon, and just after two seconds, the news is that a child died in an open gutter in Karachi,” Kamal had said.
(With agency inputs)
