PHOTO: PPI
LAHORE: The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) submitted its report regarding elections in NA-122 before the Election Tribunal, wherein it said that their systems could not verify nearly 40% of the votes cast in the constituency on May 11, 2013.
National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq had beaten Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan to the seat. Khan, alleging that the election had been rigged to ensure that Sadiq and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz won the seat, had challenged the result with the election tribunal.
Read: NADRA will release report exposing 'rigging' in NA-122: Imran Khan
While pursuing the case, the tribunal had ordered Nadra to submit its report on the elections. On Saturday, Nadra submitted its reports, copies of which were also given to counsels of both political parties.
Per the report, Nadra said it had processed 184,151 votes through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) to match fingerprints on counterfoils with fingerprint data of registered voter/ held with NADRA.
The software discovered that they had verified the thumb impressions on 73, 478 votes, nearly 40% of all the votes cast in the constituency. Further, the report stated that 93,852 votes could not be processed because of the poor quality of the fingerprints.
Further, Nadra said that during authentication they discovered that there were 6,123 votes cast on which the CNIC numbers used were invalid (never issued by Nadra). There were 2,862 votes which carried notarization issues with digits of CNIC numbers missing. There were 3,440 votes on which writing was illegible. There were 370 vote counterfoils on which the CNIC number had not been noted, while on 255 counterfoils, the CNIC number had been mentioned multiple times.
They found 1,715 votes on which there were no fingerprints to scan.
Additionally there were 570 votes with CNIC numbers which were not registered in NA-122.
After the reports were presented, PTI counsel Anees Ali Hashmi asked whether the election was fair given that 51% of the votes could not be verified and claimed that this was the ‘second wicket’ that the PML-N will lose.
On the other hand Sadiq’s son said that the PTI chief was misleading the nation, adding that rigging could not be proved in the constituency.
Dr Ali Sadiq said that Imran Khan should avoid damaging his credibility.
PMLN’s counsel Barrister Asjad Saeed told The Express Tribune that NADRA’s report was compared with its CNIC’s record rather than verifying it in light of Supreme Court of Pakistan’s judgment SCMR 1999. He added that the election of returning candidate could not be declared null and void in light of negligence of polling staff.
Read: 'Commission finds no counterfeit votes in NA-122 ballot bags'
Following a tribunal's announcement for re-polling in NA-125, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief, Imran Khan had said that NADRA would release a report pertaining to alleged rigging in NA-122 within a week.
An election tribunal had accepted a petition by PTI chief Imran Khan and constituted a commission to probe into the alleged rigging in NA-122, the constituency from where National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq was elected.
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