ISLAMABAD - Looking overjoyed and appreciating the decision of the election tribunal to hold re-election in NA-125, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Monday said Khwaja Saad Rafique had been a stranger in the house for two years, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would also become a stranger in the Parliament very soon.
Addressing a press conference along with the other senior leaders of his party after the decision of the tribunal, Imran Khan said Khwaja Saad Rafique should not befool the masses as their sit-in (dharna) exposed rigging.
Imran Khan said the decision was the outcome of his party’s 126-day-long sit-in and constant struggle for electoral reforms. He claimed with confidence that 2015 would be the election year.
He said the tribunal had declared the election of NA-125 null and void on the basis of Nadra forensic report on election bags of seven polling stations as there was trash stuffed in other bags. “Had my party not protested, such decisions would not have been possible,” Imran Khan said, adding they would pressurise POs and ROs to disclose who asked them to rig the elections. He said his party would request the judicial commission to probe these low-ranked judicial officials and examine who had actually given such instructions to them. The PTI chief added re-election should be held after the election officers were held accountable as the government could rig the polls again.
He demanded the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) hold accountable the presiding and returning officers involved in rigging in the constituency.
Imran Khan also questioned Nadra why it did not release a forensic report on NA-122 (the constituency where NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq defeated the PTI chief) that was due last week. He said he would meet the Nadra chief to ask him why the report was not being released.
Imran Khan, reading the tribunal’s short order, said according to Nadra’s report, each voter on average voted six times in NA-125. It took two years to a prominent lawyer, Hamid Khan, to get justice. “One can imagine how much it is difficult to contest such cases,” he said.
Imran demanded the ECP provide the forensic results of NA-122 at the earliest, adding the verdict of Jahangir Tareen’s constituency would also be out by the end of this month.
“The Judicial Commission may decide who planned and committed rigging in the 2013 elections,” he said.
Rejecting Khwaja Saad Rafique’s claim that he was not involved in rigging and that it was due to incompetency of the election officers, Imran said had the elections been held in a free and fair manner, the tribunal would not have declared re-election. He argued that results of local government elections could not be linked to the general elections.
Agencies add: Welcoming the election tribunal’s decision to unseat Khwaja Saad Rafique, senior PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi said his party had been striving for transparent elections.
Qureshi said his party had accepted defeat in NA-246 when MQM won in a fair manner. “This is not just the fight of PTI; it’s a battle for the common man,” he said. The PTI leader said the NA-125 decision was the first drop of rain.
“We have produced evidence, containing 132,000 documents, of fraud in the last general elections.” He hoped the verdict of NA-122 would also be in favour of PTI.
In a separate statement, PTI leader Asad Umar congratulated Hamid Khan, who had contested against Saad Rafique in NA-125, over the decision of the ET. He said Saad Rafique always denied election rigging, but now the ET had proven that organised rigging had taken place in NA-125. Asad Umar added the party was still waiting for the results of two more constituencies.
On the other hand, PTI Chief Imran Khan’s wife, Reham Khan, while mocking Railway Minister Saad Rafique said “the train has derailed”. She said no one could stop revolution as PTI was determined to prove rigging. She hoped to get a fair chance to compete in transparent election once again.