05 July 2004	Monday	16 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

LAHORE, July 4: The PPP and the PML-N, two major opposition parties which had put up separate candidates for the Saturday by election, have rejected the results as massively rigged and vowed to challenge them before the relevant court of law to seek fresh by polls.

The PML-N said it would also issue a white paper to give all details of how the rigging took place. All four seats, on which the by election were held, have been won by the ruling party nominees.

Talking to reporters at a reception, Punjab PPP president Qasim Zia said there was no use of holding the elections the way they were held on Saturday. He said the Election Commission should advise the government that instead of staging such a farce in future, it should notify people it wanted to put up on vacant seats.

He said by election on the Lahore seat was between PPP and PML-N candidates and the remaining contestants stood nowhere. Party's deputy information secretary Altaf Qureshi, information secretary Naveed Chaudhry, Lahore president Mian Misbahur Rehman, People's Lawyers Forum president Raja Zulqernain and Youth Wing chief Mian Mohammad Ayub were also present.

The reception had been organized by Misbahur Rehman for the new office-bearers of the Punjab Assembly Press Gallery. Qasim Zia said in Bahawalpur, except for PPP supporters nobody had come out to exercise his right to vote. The vote count announced by the relevant authorities was nothing more than what he called a fabrication.

He claimed that he had videoed an irrefutable proof of rigging in the Lahore election which he would produce before the court. He alleged that results of 25 polling stations had been changed. Also, he said, he had caught an official red-handed stamping ballot papers in favour of the ruling party candidate.

He said by deploying its supporters on all polling stations, the party had exposed rigging. In response to a question about the election of Shaukat Aziz as a member of the National Assembly before succeeding Shujaat Husain as prime minister, Qasim Zia said the polls could be free and fair only if held under the supervision of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

PML-N: MNA Saad Rafiq said at a separate news conference that the by election in Lahore was a drama whose results had been announced by a weak returning officer under pressure from the government.

The election, he said, had established it once more that the establishment was determined not to give importance to the opinion expressed through ballot. The electorate, he said, had realized their worthlessness, and it was for this reason that people did not come out to exercise their right.

The party's defeated candidate, Naseer Bhutta, and provincial information secretary Zaeem Qadri were also present. Saad alleged that national ID cards of some Christian voters had been taken away by the ruling party a day before the election for use in favour of its candidate.

The Lahore SSP, he said, also used his authority to ensure the victory of the ruling party nominee. He claimed that the government had planned to manipulate results of 51 polling stations, but the opposition frustrated the plan on 28 of them.

The PML-N leader said the ARD would have given the ruling party a tough competition on the Lahore seat if the PPP had not put up its candidate only to satisfy its ego. The provincial PPP leadership, he said, should have gone by the central ARD's decision on the subject.