Trouble in : PTI MNA unseated for concealing assets, graft

Election tribunal orders re-polling within 90 days

MULTAN/ LAHORE:

An election tribunal in Multan unseated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA Rai Hasan Nawaz from the NA-162 (Sahiwal-III) constituency on Tuesday for failing to disclose his assets. The tribunal also ordered re-polling within 90 days.

Haji Muhammad Ayub, an independent candidate, had submitted a written petition to the election tribunal over the alleged corrupt practices of the PTI’s Rai Hasan Nawaz.

The petitioner told Justice (retd) Rana Zahid Mehmood that Rai Nawaz had submitted inaccurate information about his assets to the district returning officer during the 2013 general elections.

According to the petition, Rai Nawaz was the managing director of Murtaza Haseeb Textile Mills that was a defaulter of Rs887 million, but he had concealed the information in his declaration. He had also failed to declare his ownership of a petrol pump and a CNG station, claimed Ayub.

“The PTI candidate is also a defaulter of Rs400,000 in telephone bills. He did not pay his bills when he was a nazim or when he worked on other posts,” said the petition. Ten candidates had contested for NA-162 in the polls. The constituency had a total of 306,359 registered voters, and Rai Nawaz bagged 88,974 of the votes.

The petitioner was the runner-up with 75,756 votes. He was unofficially backed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Thumbprint verification

An election tribunal in Lahore has ordered thumbprint verification of ballot papers in two Lahore constituencies won by PML-N candidates.

Justice (retd) Kazim Ali Malik asked the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to complete the verification in NA-128 (Lahore-XI) and PP-160 (Lahore-XXIV) and report back to the tribunal within a month. The ballot papers of the constituencies would be handed over to NADRA on Wednesday (today). PTI’s defeated candidates in the constituencies, on whose petition the verification has been ordered, have been told to bear all the expenses of the authentication.

PML-N’s Muhammad Afzal Khokhar had won NA-128 with 124,107 votes cast at 250 polling stations. PTI’s Karamat Ali Khokhar had secured 78,369 votes.

PML-N’s Malik Saiful Malook Khokhar had won PP-160 with 71,677 votes. PTI’s Malik Zaheer Abbas Khokhar had secured 59,486 votes.

In his petition, Malik Zaheer accused his opponent of rigging and pre-poll rigging. Challenging the result of the poll, he said supporters of the PML-N candidate had rigged the election with the connivance of the polling staff.

He said the total registered votes in the constituency were 292,435. “The total polled votes were 150,512 and 1,998 were rejected for being invalid.”

He requested the court to order thumbprint verification of the ballot papers and declare him the winner after proving massive rigging.

A local commissioner appointed by the tribunal submitted a 1,000-page report that claimed that there was evidence of rigging, and suggested thumbprint verification of the ballot papers.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2015.