Sher Afzal Marwat, a senior leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has stated that the party lost over 80 seats in the national and provincial assemblies as a result of its own poor decisions.
Marwat spoke on News’ “Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath” on Thursday, detailing two “wrong decisions” that he believes led to the struggling PTI losing reserved seats following the February 8 elections.
Marwat claimed that the PTI’s decision to withdraw from an electoral alliance with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Shirani (JUI-Shirani) and then strike an arrangement with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-Nazriati (PTI-N) inflicted a significant damage to the party.
“There is a question mark over who brought in the batsman [electoral symbol of PTI-N] and cancelled the [deal] with Sherani sb,” he told reporters.
Marwat suggested that an inquiry be held at the party level to determine who was responsible for the erroneous actions.
“Had these decisions not been made, we would not have been deprived of the electoral symbol,” Marwat said, adding that PTI candidates may still run for office on the JUI-S platform despite losing the bat emblem.
The Imran Khan-founded party lost its electoral symbol before of the elections after the Election Commission of Pakistan ruled that its intra-party polling violated the law, and the Supreme Court confirmed the judgment.
Furthermore, Marwat stated that the second worst mistake was collaborating with Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) to win allocated seats.The PTI representative said that they had to ally with the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) after getting threats for forming an electoral alliance with MWM. “Due to these flawed decisions, we lost over 80 seats,” he told reporters.
