ISLAMABAD - Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Dr Farooq Sattar asked the govt to table a bill in the National Assembly to grant voting right to overseas Pakistanis, a day after Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said that overseas Pakistanis should be allowed to vote. Addressing a press conference at Ministry for Overseas Pakistanis on Wednesday, Sattar asserted that if the government failed to present the bill, the MQM would table a private bill to earn the voting eligibility for Pakistanis living abroad. “Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis is working diligently to provide voting rights to millions of overseas Pakistanis. We have made it very clear to government that expats should be given right to vote in general elections,” Sattar said, adding that MQM would step forward by tabling a private bill to give right to millions of expats during general elections. According to some political analysts, this move of Sattar was a publicity stunt to impress the millions of overseas Pakistanis as general elections are just ahead. They say that the MQM has been a part of governments since 2000 but they never raised voice for getting voting right for expats. “Over the years, we have been asking the governments to give us right to vote in general elections. Now, we believe, politicians would never give us our right. Apex court is the only ray of hope to invest voting power with us,” Sultan Mehmood, a Pakistani expat living in Jeddah, told The Nation through telephone, adding that the chief justice had won the hearts of millions of overseas Pakistanis by asking the government to give them right to vote.Farooq Sitar’s warning for the government to give voting right to expats came following remarks of the chief justice in which he had said that expats should be given right to cast vote in general elections.The chief justice remarked this while hearing a constitutional petition, filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), seeking preparation of new electoral rolls after deleting the names of all bogus voters.