October 14, 2002	Monday	Sha'aban 7, 1423

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FAISALABAD, Oct 13: Local PPP and PML-N leaders have rejected the poll results as rigged.

In their news conferences on Sunday, they said the district and tehsil Nazims had manoeuvred the victory of PML-Q nominees by using public funds, harassing rival candidates and changing the poll results with the connivance of police and other government agencies.

PPP divisional coordinator and MPA-elect Raja Riaz Ahmed and losing candidate from NA-83 Ijaz Ahmed Virk claimed that they and the PML-N would use their influence among councillors and union council Nazimeen to move a vote of no-confidence against District Nazim Zahid Nazir and City Tehsil Nazim Mumtaz Ali Cheema.

“Having vast executive powers under the devolution plan, the two nazims forced the police and government employees to play the role of political workers,” they alleged.

The police, according to them, had conducted a number of raids at the offices and houses of PPP candidates and their main supporters and also targeted district president Ch Muhammad Ilyas, who was in fact the chief campaigner of the party.

“The nazims succeeded in removing the district PPP chief from the political scene which hampered the election campaign of the PPP candidates.”

They said the district and city government funds and their staff were at the disposal of the brothers of the district and city nazims who ran for two NA and one PA seats from the PML-Q platform.

They claimed that the results were changed to the liking of PML-Q candidate Mushtaq Ali Cheema from NA-83 by the police and administration. “Ballot papers, result sheets and counting papers were first brought to the police stations and then to the Rescue-15 centre where an election control had been set up by the police. There, the bags containing ballot papers were de-sealed and bogus ballots were added in favour of PML-Q candidates.”

According to them, PPP candidates from NA-79, NA-80, NA-82, and NA-83 were ahead till late Thursday night but on Friday morning the results were titled in favour of the king’s party.

They said MNA-elect Mushtaq Ali Cheema was involved in a ‘rebate scandal’ in which NAB had already arrested customs collector Shaukat Ali Bhatti besides recovering Rs 110 million from lockers.

Being a chairman of the Faisalabad Dryport Trust, they said, Cheema was also involved in the scam. “Cheema and his brother Mumtaz Ali Cheema who were diehard supporters of the PPP shifted their loyalty and joined the PML-Q to save their skin,” they added. The PPP leaders rejected the results of NA-79, NA-80, NA-82 and NA-83 and the provincial assembly seats of PP-54, PP-56, PP-57, PP-58, PP-59 and PP-60, as being an outcome of the vote fraud.

Speaking at another press conference PML-N MNAs-Sahibzada Fazal Karim, Raja Nadir Pervaiz Khan and Abid Sher Ali, and MPAs-Rana Sanaullah Khan, Sheikh Ijaz Ahmed and Nawaz Malik, and former ex-MNA Sher Ali and city president ex-MPA Khawaja Muhammad Islam said that under a pre-planned conspiracy, the government had changed the results of more than 55 NA seats, depriving the PML-N of taking lead at the national level. They alleged that potential candidates of the PML-N and PPP were forced to join the PML-Q. “In such circumstances, how can the Musharraf government befool the nation that it is not involved in any pre-polling rigging?”

According to them, the principal secretary to the chief executive, Tariq Aziz, had been issuing instructions to the chief secretaries of the provinces and other high government functionaries to support PML-Q candidates.