Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has claimed that that about 50 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MPAs will not vote for Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and will elect Hamza Shehbaz as Punjab chief minister in a run-off election being held on Friday (tomorrow).

He made this claim while addressing a press conference in Islamabad on Thursday.

Rana further asserted: “Not five, but 50 PTI MPAs can either vote against him [Hamza] or stay away from casting their votes”.

He maintained that that any of the MPAs not showing up for the elections would be due to “Elahi’s incompetence, adding that that PML-N would exercise all political and legal options to win Punjab CM re-election.

PML-N leader blamed Imran Khan for buying loyalties of MPAs after the general election of 2018, but it would not be called horse trading if the MPAs would vote as per their conscience, it would be called horse-trading by Imran Khan.

He hoped “The ones in PTI, who still have a conscience, will not vote for Elahi.”

Later on Thursday, Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan in Tweet said, “Let the nefarious ambitions be thwarted. Now, the king of the crime world – Asif Ali Zardari and Shahbaz Sharif, after taking NRO2, are busy making a mockery of the law and violating the constitution by using the looted wealth to buy MPAs.”

He said that he would address the nation at 9 pm today.

He further said that they would come out again today to defend their mandate by protesting across the country.

“Let Sri Lanka be an example to send a clear message to the miscreants, their patrons and ECP that the people will definitely not allow you to clean your hands of the public mandate in Punjab.

He recalled that the imported government led by the US conspiracy to replace the government, led by the discredited ECP, but with the help of the dishonest and biased Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, tried to rig the by-elections of Punjab through the government machinery.