No recounts: Returning officers dismiss complaints

Hamid Khan, Kh Hassaan likely to take complaints to election tribunals.

LAHORE:

The returning officers for NA-125 and NA-126 have dismissed complaints of rigging and requests for recounts by the losing Tehreek-i-Insaf and Muslim League-Nawaz candidates at the two constituencies.

Returning Officer Javedul Hassan Chishti heard a complaint filed by the PML-N’s Khawaja Ahmed Hassaan (the losing candidate at NA-126), Syed Tauseef Shah (who lost at PP-151) and Khawaja Salman Rafique (PP-152), alleging that the winning candidates – the PTI’s Shafqat Mehmood (NA-126), Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed (PP-151) and Murad Ras (PP-152) – had rigged the polls with the help of police.

Chishti told The Express Tribune that he had dismissed the complaint as there was no substance to the allegations.



Meanwhile, Returning Officer Khalid Mehmood Bhatti heard a complaint filed by the PTI’s Hamid Khan (the losing candidate at NA-125), Hafiz Farhat Abbas (PP-155) and Ahsan Rasheed (PP-156). They had accused the PML-N’s Khawaja Saad Rafique (NA-125), Mian Naseer (PP-155) and Yaseen Sohal (PP-156) of large-scale rigging.

Bhatti initially reserved his decision, later announcing that he had decided to dismiss the complaint.

NA-126

The counsel for Hassaan told the returning officer that there were 755 voters registered at polling station number 218, but 850 votes had been polled there, which was clear evidence of rigging.

He said that Khawaja Usman, brother of Salman Rafique (and Saad Rafique), had caught a former union council nazim named Haji Fayyaz Ahmad holding fake ballot papers. Fayyaz Ahmad was handed over to the police and a case was later registered against him.

At the Model Town Government Girls High School in E Block, the presiding officer’s husband had been inside the polling station and had rigged the voting in favour of the PTI candidate, the complainant alleged.



The counsel for Shafqat Mehmood submitted that the case was not in the returning officer’s jurisdiction and should be heard by an election tribunal. In any case, he argued, there was no evidence to show that the PTI candidate had participated in any rigging. He said that the losing candidate was well aware that there had been no rigging. They were only making the accusation because they had lost, he said.

He said: “Where were the PML-N polling agents when this rigging was being carried out? Did they complain to the returning officer or the presiding officers? Why did they sign the voter count sheets if there had been rigging?”

Mehmood said that the complaint had been filed as a counter after Hamid Khan had complained about rigging at NA-125. The returning officer dismissed the complaint.

NA-125

The counsel for Hamid Khan alleged that the PML-N candidates and agents had, in a systematic and pre-planned scheme in connivance with presiding officers and police, violated numerous provisions of the Representation of the People Act of 1976.

Bogus votes were cast and ballot boxes and papers tampered with, he said. PTI polling agents had been threatened, removed from polling stations and restrained from attending the counting of votes by presiding officers, he said.

The counsel for Saad Rafique said that the plea was not maintainable as it was a matter for the election tribunal to decide. He rejected the allegations against Rafique.

The returning officer reserved his decision and later dismissed it.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2013.