Karachi: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) suffered a setback in Karachi on Thursday when one of its elected MPAs lost his seat over rigging and bogus voting. The runner-up from the Jamaat-e-Islami was declared winner by the election tribunal.
The development will be an embarrassment to PTI chief Imran Khan, who has accused the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of stealing his party’s mandate through rigging and has planned to stage an ‘Azadi March’ towards Islamabad on August 14.
The election tribunal had allowed the petition of JI candidate Abdul Razzak, who had challenged the election results of PS-93 in which PTI candidate Syed Hafeezuddin was declared winner in May 2013 elections.
The petitioner’s counsel had alleged that the PTI candidate, in connivance with the presiding officers of seven polling stations – 2, 18, 23, 29, 32, 55 and 68 – managed to obtain favourable results different from the count they had provided on plain papers to his client’s polling agents. The original count, he said, showed a clear-cut lead over the returned candidate and hence they reduced his lead by increasing the votes of Hafeezuddin, showing a lead of 4,472 votes over Razzak.
He had submitted that his client secured the highest number of votes from the constituency as per the presiding officers’ results given to him, but the statement of the vote count submitted by the presiding officers of nine polling stations showed that excessive votes of 5,637 had been recorded in favour of the PTI candidate.
Razzak had asked the tribunal to declare the victory of his rival candidate void and declare him the winner.
The PTI candidate’s counsel denied the allegations. He submitted that since the polls were held in a peaceful atmosphere, the election results could not be termed void.
The election tribunal, headed by Justice (retd) Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, observed that connivance between presiding officer Safia Malik and the returned candidate was “floating on the surface of the record” and there could not be any doubt that the act of increasing 1,400 votes of the returned candidate was nothing but procuring her assistance illegally to secure Hafeezuddin’s win. Hence, the PTI candidate committed an illegal practice within the contemplation of Section 83(b) of the Representation of People Act, said Sherwani.
The tribunal declared the election of the PTI candidate void under Section 68 of the act.
The tribunal directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to issue a notification in this regard in its official gazette. Story The News
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