Imran Khan nominates Omar Ayub as PTI’s candidate for prime minister of Pakistan

Tariq Butt, Correspondent

Incarcerated Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) founder and former prime minister Imran Khan on Thursday nominated Omar Ayub as the candidate for the contest of the prime minister and gave a call for protest on Saturday against "election rigging.”

Meanwhile, the PTI nominated Mian Aslam Iqbal as the candidate for the office of the Punjab chief minister, Salar Khan as its nominee for the slot of the Balochistan chief minister and Aqib Khan, brother of former National Assembly speaker, as the speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

In the meantime, the PTI announced that it would engaged into talks with the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) headed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and nationalist parties, which are protesting against the poll rigging, for co-operation in the agitation against the election manipulation.

Different PTI leaders including Barrister Gohar Khan, Afzal Marwat, Asad Qaisar, Barrister Saif, lawyer Salman Akram Raja and some others met Imran in the Adiala Jail Rawalpindi and later conveyed his decision to the media in separate chats with journalists. The announcement about Omar Ayub came after Asad Qaiser held a meeting with Imran.

A day earlier, the PTI leader petitioned the Islamabad High Court (IHC) seeking a meeting with Imran to discuss the current political scenario.

Qaiser said Imran has nominated PTI central general secretary Omar Ayub — who is in hiding after facing over 20 criminal charges following the May 9 riots — as the candidate for prime minister.

"Every child knows about the rigging that took place in the elections.”

He stated that Imran has given him an "assignment” to engage with all political parties protesting the election results, specifically mentioning JUI-F, the Awami National Party (ANP) and Qaumi Watan Party.

"We want to form a strategy together because these were the worst elections in the history of Pakistan,” the PTI leader said, alleging that the Feb.8 polls had no credibility both locally and internationally.

"Therefore, we have decided that we will protest against this [elections] across the country and I will myself reach out to political parties for this purpose,” Qaiser added.

Omar Ayub is the grandson of late Field Marshal Ayub Khan and son of late Gohar Ayub.

He was previously associated with the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) and PML-Nawaz. He was also once a minister of state in the PML-N government.

Gohar Ayub was once the foreign minister and speaker of the National Assembly during the Nawaz Sharif government.