PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) on Friday alleged that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) indulged in ‘massive rigging’ during by-election in NA-4, Peshawar, in connivance with officials from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
Addressing a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Friday, PML-N’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) President Amir Muqam said he had ‘solid’ evidences of rigging during voting in the constituency a day earlier wherein PTI’s candidate Arbab Amir Ayub stood victorious.
Muqam said a huge difference between the turnout and the votes recorded was found. “This is impossible without the support of ECP, maybe some lower ranked officers are involved … but they are involved,” he said, adding that the provincial government had already devised a ‘Plan B’ in case ‘Plan A’ failed besides the ‘Plan C’ in case ‘Plan B’ also meets failure.
The PML-N provincial president claimed that Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had manipulated the election process by assigning officers of his choice to the election duty. He accused the ECP staff of assisting in vote tampering during the by-poll, insisting that rigging is not possible without the ‘consent’ of election staff. “Some of the polling agents were told that they had been shifted to another station when they showed up for their duty on the election day,” he said, reiterating that he has evidence of it. “Abdul Hakim, presiding officer at Sorizai Payan, reached his polling station where he was told his duty has been shifted to another location,” he said, adding that Hakim was not the only example but many others were transferred at the eleventh hour.
Muqam raised questions over high number of votes casted amid low turnout. “Camps were empty but the boxes turned out to be filled,” he claimed. “In some polling stations, thousands of votes were cast when it should have been 500-600,” he alleged. “Why was the media not allowed inside the polling premises?” he questioned.
The PTI government in KP, he added, also committed pre-poll rigging by announcing development projects in the constituency after the announcement of the election schedule by the ECP. He argued that the announcement of installation of solar panels in 400 mosques in NA-4 should be considered a pre-poll rigging.
“I congratulate Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and PTI Chairman Imran Khan for materialising their plan of action – massive rigging in by-polls,” he mocked.
Muqam said not even a single project had been launched in the area after the death of late MNA Gulzar Khan in August. “If someone can prove that I, on behalf of the federal government, have launched a single project or released a penny for development projects in NA-4, I will resign from politics,” he claimed.
Published in Daily Times, October 28th 2017.
