The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which is currently spearheading agitation against the government over allegations of rigging in last year’s general elections, has lost a seat in the Sindh Assembly as the election tribunal disqualified the party’s elected candidate over poll irregularities.
The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) had challenged the victory of the PTI candidate on the provincial assembly constituency, PS-93, from Karachi.
The tribunal, headed by a former judge of the Sindh High Court (SHC), Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, directed its office to communicate the verdict to the Election Commission of Pakistan to issue a notification in the gazette in this regard.
PTI’s Syed Hafeezuddin was declared the returned candidate with 15,432 votes against the JI’s Abdul Razzak, who managed to secure 10,960 votes on May 11. Razzak had later challenged the results before the election tribunal in Karachi.
During the trial proceedings, he argued that the returned candidate had managed to obtain different vote counts from the presiding officers at seven polling stations (Nos. 2, 18, 23, 29, 32, 55 and 68) in the PS-93 constituency.
The petitioner claimed that the presiding officers had provided the results on pieces of paper to his agents, which showed that he had a clear lead over the returned candidate. When the consolidated results were announced, it had reduced his lead by increasing the votes of the returned candidate.
Razzak further alleged that 463 votes cast in his favour were reduced by the returning officer at the time of consolidation of results of polling stations Nos. 29, 32, 68, 71 and 77. At the same time 5,538 votes of the returned candidate were increased at the same polling stations.
The petitioner’s lawyer said that, under Section 68 of the Representation of Peoples Act 1976, the result of the returned candidate should be declared void while the petitioner was entitled to be declared the returned candidate under Section 69 of the Act.
To support his claim, the petitioner produced witnesses, who included five presiding officers as well as four polling agents. His primary attack was on the integrity and competence of the presiding officers, especially of polling station No. 29, Safia Sultana Malik, who has shown in her statement of count the votes cast in favour of the returned candidate as 1,400, whereas the petitioner’s name was not mentioned.
Citing another example, the petitioner recalled that the presiding officer at polling station No. 32 had at one point shown that he was leading by 94 votes, but the consolidated results showed that he had clinched only eight votes at the station.
The JI candidate claimed that Hafeezuddin had sought illegal assistance of government officials to manage his victory.
Denial
Returned candidate, Syed Hafeezuddin, denied the allegations, claiming that theelections were held peacefully.
The tribunal’s head, Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, wrote in the judgment: “The upshot of the above discussion is that the petition is allowed. The election of the returned candidate is declared void under Section 68 of the Act.” He ordered his office staff to inform the ECP to issue a notification in the official gazette in this regard.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 8th, 2014.
COMMENTS (19)
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Well now jamat islami has parliamentary representation in 3 provinces, (Sindh,Punjab, Kpk). unlike most of other parties who just has presence in one province. well there is lot of energy is visible among jamat islami especially in karachi after siraj ul haq becoming central amir. karachi jamat islami has almost new leadership which are very young and energetic most of them are in early 40s. (Naeem Ur rehman, Abdul Wahab, Abdul razzaq, younus barai and not to forget nasar ullah shaji shaheed). in my opinion for pti existence in karachi, PTi must alliance with jamat islami as a junior partner in next coming local body elections, otherwise pti will be complete wash out from karachi (e.g Bye elections 22 Aug 2013 pti got 2000 votes from north nazimabad and 2500 votes from jouhar and shah faisal seat).
@ bukhari well it is quite easy to say rigging could be done by any party. ordinary people knows PTI strengths. they got the vote in potohar region, in KPK and in Punjab too, they are force. but please dont assume pti is a real force force in karachi. abdul razzaq is a really famous person of that constituency, my office is there, there is no question of loosing of abdul razzaq in PS 93.
1st: JI has boycotted the election in Karachi. 2nd: Rigging could be done by any candidate in a constituency. Don't blame PTI. If PTI did rigging as a party policy it will be like MQM, PMLN in assembly in numbers.
Well people of karachi knows exact popularity of PTI especially in karachi. on August 22 Bye elections in karachi, PTI got 2000 votes from north nazimabad seat hahahha. On May 11 PTI got benefit from jamat islami boycott otherwise PTI has no standing. just imagine if a guy won the seat despite of boycotting at 1:00 pm, wow how famous he must have been. this seat is a strong seat of Jamat islami, jamat islami won it previously (hameed ullah advocate ex jamat islami mpa from this seat), Abdul razzaq won twice UC nazim from this seat. truly speaking in karachi after MQM only jamat islami is a force.
This now prove that MQM has big mandate in Karachi and other Sind cities.. Shame on PTI, and ANGEL IK is behind of this,
Well done to the election tribunals. This is the real face of PTI. Losers to the core.
How can someone be disqualified on the basis of 'verbal argument' presented by the losing candidate? Was there any recounting? Was there any thumb verification? Were the votes crosschecked with the counterfoils? NO!!! No one gets de-seated when thousands of fake votes have been confirmed through thumb verification in NA-256, NA-258, NA--118. This ECP is just one of the reasons why the Azadi march must happen.
@Peshawari:
Sour grapes.
As usual, in last election every party did rigging. PTI is no exception.
This election commission will be begging for mercy...........soon very soon.
And they continued suspecting MQM for rigging elections in Karachi :-) Its politics and everyone does whatever they have in their capacity. Sorry situation for Pakistan!
PTI had been criticizing Election commission and presiding officers and had been accusing them of rigging.
In reality PTI candidate in collusion/connivance of more then half a dozen presiding officers manages to illegally add 5538 votes extra in order to increase his lead and win the seat.
So much for all the rigging allegations by PTI,this case clearly shows that election tribunals are working,they might have been slow in some cases but eventually they are giving verdict and justice is being served..
Its apparent that PTI clearly knows that through proper channel it won't be ever able to come to power so its accusing everyone involved in 2013 election of rigging just because they didn't got the result that they were expecting and now through unconstitutional means,through some short cut they want to come to power.
Ouch ! That wouldn't sit well with the Angry Old Man.
I am eager to hear from PTI supporters. Only the second case where rigging has been clearly proven. The first was also by a PTI candidate in Haripur. Imran Khan should demand trial of PTI candidates and the relevant election officials under Article 6.
Now PTI should keep quiet, and stop crying....
Clutching at straws. Dozens of such tribunals have not given a verdict on PMLN's rigging but they're expedited a decision on PTI's win just before the rally. This doesn't change anything.
Seriously is this how justice system works???
He said I had 94 more and in the end I only had 9. Someone wrote something on a piece of paper and then it was different in the end.
This is not evidence this is hearsay. Hats off to our judges if they can decide cases on such material. My 5 year old provides better arguments and evidence in her cases than these professionals.
Ha Ha Ha this is hilarious!
JI candidate Abdul Razzaq also produced evidence showing that Presiding Officers at the six polling stations in question were not government employees and the PTI candidate had fake Presiding Officers deployed to rig the election in his favour, securing 41% of all his votes from 6 out of 88 polling stations. He also talked to Imran Khan on the phone about this case but got no positive reply from Tsunami Khan.