Bogus votes: Tribunal orders verification for 12 polling stations

Petitioner alleged winning candidate’s supporters had opened fire at his staff and bogus votes had been polled.

PESHAWAR:

The Election Tribunal ordered the National Database and Registration Authority on Thursday to verify thumbprints in 12 polling stations of NA-40 North Waziristan by April 14.

The election tribunal judge Ziauddin Khattak heard arguments over the election petition filed by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) candidate Pir Muhammad Aqal Shah and ordered the verification.

The petitioner alleged that on the day of general elections, the winning candidate’s supporters had opened fire at his staff and bogus votes had been polled in the constituency. He added that mass rigging had been reported after his own supporters had left the polling stations.

Independent candidate Muhammad Nazir Khan had won the election in NA-40; bagging 18,055 out of the total casted votes of 77,970.

77,113 of the votes were declared valid, while 857 were rejected. There were a total of 160,666 registered voters in the constituency, making the total percentage of polled votes 48.50%.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th, 2014.