ISLAMABAD: In its presidential reference to the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) shunned the act of switching parties and floor crossing by members of the parliament as “cancerous”.
It pleaded with the Apex Court to eradicate the practice altogether by disqualifying “habitual turncoats” for life.
But the PTI has not always rallied against those who change party allegiances. In fact in 2018, 46 candidates, in the race for national assembly seats, who won on the PTI ticket, were previously with their rival political parties.
Not only that, after coming to power in August 2018, Khan’s political party, which was gearing to form government in the centre, took in five members of the national assembly (MNAs) who had won the national polls independently.
These five men were: Syed Fakhar Imam, Abdul Ghaffar Wattoo, Muhammad Shabbir Ali, Basit Sultan Bukhari and Amjad Farooq Khan Khosa. Two of these — Imam and Ali — were later also made ministers in the PTI government.
It is important to mention here that these five MNAs, and several other members of the provincial assembly in Punjab, joined the PTI due to the efforts of businessman and politician Jahangir Khan Tareen.
Even at this moment, there are 51 sitting MNAs, who had defected from other political parties to join PTI in 2018, of which 10 are sitting federal ministers.
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