PTI wants Gilani disqualified over son's video.

Byline: Amir Wasim

ISLAMABAD -- Surfacing on Tuesday of a video clip showing Ali Haider Gilani, the son of the opposition's joint candidate for a Senate seat Yousuf Raza Gilani, telling some unidentified Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers about techniques of wasting their votes added to the existing hype over the Senate election taking place on Wednesday (today).

Hours after the video clip was posted on the official Twitter account of the ruling PTI and went viral on main and social media, Ali Haider held a news conference with Pakistan Peoples Party information secretary Shazia Marri and confirmed the authenticity of the video clip, saying he had done nothing wrong and his conscience was clear.

The video came to the surface hours before a gathering of the leaders and members of the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) at a dinner hosted by PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for them and the party legislators at a five-star hotel. The dinner was also attended by leader of opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz.

Talking briefly to the reporters while going to the dinner, Mr Bhutto-Zardari and Yousuf Raza Gilani defended the act of the younger Gilani, saying that asking for votes from every constituent was their democratic right and urged the ruling party to take care of its own members.

Ali Haider appears to be telling unidentified lawmakers of ruling party how to get their votes rejected

Yousuf Raza said that he had even written a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan, asking him to vote for him.

On the other hand, the PTI, while terming the leaked video clip 'shameful', asked the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to take notice of it and called for disqualification of Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Meanwhile, PTI MNAs Farrukh Habib and Kanwal Shauzab filed a petition before the ECP seeking Mr Gilani's disqualification after a spokesman for the commission had already announced that they would 'investigate the matter on merit.'

Disclosing the details about the viral video clip, Ali Haider claimed that the PTI MNAs, who had sought a meeting with him, had told him that they did not want to vote for their party's candidate Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and wanted to vote for his father.

Ali Haider said the PTI lawmakers asked him as to what should they do if they got a 'marked and identifiable ballot paper' and were forced to vote against their conscience. Only then he told them about the method of wasting their vote by putting a cross...