LAHORE (National Times) – Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhary said on Thursday the date of dissolving assemblies could be announced either on Dec 17 or 23.

At a joint press conference alongside Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Mr Fawad said the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition government did not seem ‘serious’ about holding talks as the fresh elections would help the PTI secure majority over them. He said the government falsely accused the PTI members of drawing salaries from the National Assembly after submitting resignation in the apex court.

He said the party had decided to move the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) against the acquittal of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders in corruption cases. The PTI would appeal against the acquittal of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, PML-N president Maryam Nawaz, Hamza Shehbaz and other party leaders in corruption cases under Article 184 of the Constitution. He said the party demanded that the apex court decide these cases as swiftly as it did in the disqualification case against the former prime minister.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi said former speaker Mr Suri had ordered to accept the resignations of the PTI MNAs but to no avail. “I am writing to NA Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf to reconsider his decision of accepting selective resignations,” he added.

The PTI leaders said early elections were the only solution to overcome national woes as more than 700,000 Pakistanis had travelled abroad for employment in the past 10 months. They said the conspiracy to topple the PTI government led the party members [MNAs] to submit resignations to the speaker. He said the general elections incurred a cost of Rs40 billion. The foreign tours of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had cost up to Rs12bn and Rs40bn on fresh elections to get rid of the [imported] government would be akin to charity, the remarked.