NA-122 inquiry: NADRA, local commission ruled out rigging: PML-N lawyer

Tribunal to resume hearing today.

LAHORE: An election tribunal investigating alleged rigging in the NA-122 constituency adjourned the hearing on Tuesday for July 1 (today).

Earlier, counsel for Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, the winning candidate from the constituency, continued his final arguments.

Talking to reporters after the hearing, Barrister Asjad Saeed said that after examining the polling record, both the NADRA and the inquiry commission had stated that no rigging had taken place.

“The commission reported that Sadiq still would be left with a lead of 8,851 votes if invalid votes were excluded from the count. The commission had examined Forms 14 and 15, thumb impressions of presiding officers and their signature in the presence of representatives of both parties,” he said.



At the previous hearing, Saeed had said that allegations levelled by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) were baseless. “Their claims have nothing to do with reality. There is no substantial evidence available to establish rigging in the election,” he said. The counsel said that the petition filed by PTI chief Imran Khan was not maintainable.

Earlier, the PTI counsel Advocate Anees Ali Hashmi had said there was clear evidence of rigging. He said that Sadiq had taken advantage of irregularities.

He had stated that around 45,000 votes on the record were invalid. “There is a difference between the number of votes declared invalid by the Election Commission and the NADRA,” he said. “All votes issued against incorrect CNIC numbers are invalid,” he said. The NADRA had submitted a supplementary report, stating that 5,898 (96.7 per cent) votes out of the 6,123 could be valid.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2015.