ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is considering options to bring its own electoral reforms package in the Parliament in case the government fails to bring changes in the relevant laws to make the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) strong and independent.

“The PTI is analysing the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms and will give its input to introduce stronger electoral reforms in the country and in case the government failed to do so, we will bring our own reforms package in the parliament,” Iftikhar Durrani, the head of PTI's Central Media Department said.

An electoral reforms committee of the PTI headed by its Vice-Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, these days, is looking into the report of the parliamentary committee and each and every point of the report is being analysed and discussed, he said.

Qureshi, however, said that it was too early to say that the PTI would bring its own electoral reforms package. "We are analysing every point of the report of parliamentary committee and will give our proposals on it," he said. When asked why the PTI, being a part of the committee, did not give its proposals, he said that the committee had not finalised anything and it had only circulated its draft report among the parliamentary parties to have their input and for public consumption as well.

A meeting of PTI's electoral reforms committee was held in Islamabad under the chair of party's Secretary General Jehangir Khan Tareen and the meeting discussed at least three points including giving the right of vote to overseas Pakistanis, introduce the method of electronic voting and to make the ECP stronger and independent administratively.

The participants of the meeting included PTI MNAs Asad Umar, Dr Shireen Mazari, Dr Arif Alvi, Ghulam Sarwar Khan and Shafqat Mahmood and PTI senators Azam Swati and Shibli Faraz and others. The PTI representatives in the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms gave a detailed briefing to the committee. The meeting also formed three sub-committees under the chairmanship of Dr Alvi, Ghulam Sarwar Khan and Shafqat Mahmood to analyse different aspects of electoral reforms. The report of the sub-committees would be presented before the committee in the next week.

The PTI committee stressed that the government was using delaying tactics to introduce the electronic voting method in the next general elections. "The electronic voting is feasible but the government is not serious in adopting it," the participants said. Similarly, the participants were unanimous that the government was not serious in making the ECP transparent and independent. “The ECP should be totally free from the influence of the government for holding transparent, fair and independent elections and it would have to be given complete legal financial and administrative powers,” the meeting said.

Tareen said that PTI wanted to give a transparent electoral system to the masses while sitting in the opposition. "We will try our best to reform the electoral system because the PML-N is not serious to do the same," he said. He also said that the ruling party wanted to get hold of power while taking advantages of the weakness in the electoral system.