ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan opened a new front on Sunday and alleged widespread poll rigging in Balochistan during last year’s general elections.

The PTI chief has so far been levelling allegations of rigging in Punjab but this is the first time that he has pointed finger at another province. According to him, Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch and Minister for States and Frontier Regions retired Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch were elected to the provincial and national assemblies through rigging.

He said Dr Malik had obtained 4,500 votes and his opponent Syed Shah 4,150. There was a difference of only 350 votes, but 600 votes were taken out of Mr Shah’s count by the returning officer who later allegedly admitted to have done it in a letter written to the Election Commission.

Similarly, Mr Khan said, the ECP announced the victory of Gen Qadir Baloch, although a PML-N candidate for the provincial assembly in the same constituency could not poll any vote. He accused all PML-N members of the assemblies of having been involved in poll fraud across the country.

Dr Malik Baloch and Minister for States and Frontier Regions retired Lt Gen Qadir Baloch accused of getting elected through fraud

The PTI chief said he would continue to inform the nation about the rigging and cases of corruption against the rulers from the platform of what he called PTI parliament at D-Chowk.

Addressing his supporters on Sunday night, Mr Khan said he was happy that he had succeeded in creating political awareness among women. “Once again, I appeal to the military and police personnel to reach D-Chowk, along with their family members, to participate in the PTI sit-in.”

He said the government had offered him the post of deputy prime minister in a national government. “Although I am not a prime minister, God gives me a lot of respect, more than Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,” he said.

He said it was unfortunate that the Supreme Court was not ordering registration of a case against the prime minister for lying to the nation on the floor of parliament.

“The apex court is neither rejecting nor accepting a petition of PTI leader Ishaq Khahwani seeking disqualification of the prime minister for violating Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution,” he alleged.

Mr Khan said that besides the prime minister’s resignation, he would force the ruling party to return billions of rupees of the people.

TAHIRUL QADRI: Addressing his followers, Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Dr Tahirul Qadri warned that he would announce a war against the PML-N government if justice was not provided to the victims of the Model Town incident. “If I announce a war against the government, no-one will be able to face the participants of the sit-in.”

He dismissed as baseless a BBC report alleging that the PAT leadership had provided money to the participants. He asked the participants to leave the sit-in if they wanted to go home.

“Parliamentarians like to increase their salary by up to 200 per cent but announced only 10pc raise in the allocation for government employees. There is no audit of the money spent on parliamentarians’ treatment abroad and foreign visits,” Dr Qadri said.

He appealed to people to provide financial support to the participants of the sit-in like they did to help the flood-affected people.

“Our movement is not against democracy, but it is the right of the voters to expel rulers involved in corruption,” he added.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2014