Daska (NA-75) by-polls Returning Officer Athar Abbas has proposed re-polling at 14 stations, saying the presiding officers were seemingly involved in tampering with the final result.
During his appearance before the Election Commission of Pakistan committee on Tuesday, Abbas said that the initial investigation has revealed that the presiding officers manipulated the result. The ECP has taken up a plea filed by PML-N candidate from the constituency Nousheen Iftikhar. The five-member bench which heard the case was headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja.
According to the PML-N candidate, she got 5,000 votes from the contested polling stations against PTI leader Ali Asjad Malhi’s 6,705 votes. The number of rejected votes was 139 and turnout remained at 45.16 per cent.
Whereas, the form-45 sent in by presiding officers after a delay of six hours showed that the vote gap between the PML-N and PTI candidates was 9,263 instead of 1,705. The form puts the number of rejected votes at 1,731 and the turnout at 75.34pc.
The RO’s report quoted by Dawn said at least 20 presiding officers went missing for an entire night after the vote count at their station. It added that the presiding officers also appeared before the ECP panel after much delay.
“The replies of almost all the presiding officers were stereotype that they were able to complete the counting process by 10 to 10.30pm and started back journey to the office of returning officer on the transport provided by the Election Commission and in escort of police but due to fog, they reached the office of returning officer at about 4.30am and most of them stated their phone batteries were low and they were having no chargers, in response to the questions that they were supposed to send snapshots of the result of the count through WhatsApp but they did not do the same,” the report read.
As per the report, there was no discrepancy in the record of three out of 23 polling stations from where the presiding officers had disappeared. The returning officer has proposed re-polling at 14 polling stations were there was a marked difference between the number of polled votes in two different sets of form-45.
On Friday, at least two people were shot dead as a result of firing at the polling place. Both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had alleged irregularities during the by-election on the National Assembly seat in Daska. Subsequently, the ECP withheld the results, saying it suspected irregularities in 20 polling stations.
The commission had said results of the NA-75 constituency were received with “unnecessary delay”, adding that it tried to contact the presiding officers several times but with no success.
In the backdrop of these allegations, the PM, in a series of tweet on Monday night, reaffirmed his pledge to hold transparent elections in Pakistan. “Have always struggled for fair & free elections. So even though there is no legal compulsion to do so before ECP announces results, I would request our PTI candidate to ask for re-polling in the 20 polling stations Opposition is crying hoarse over in the Daska NA 75 by- election,” Imran had tweeted.
