ISLAMABAD: Following their second defeat from the hotly-contested seat, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has once again challenged the results of the Oct 11 by-elections held in NA-122 Lahore asking the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), once again, to decide whether National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq was, in fact, the rightful winner.

But this time, the challenge doesn’t come from party chairman Imran Khan, who lost the 2013 general election to Mr Sadiq. The fresh petition has been filed by Abdul Aleem Khan, the unsuccessful PTI candidate who was running against the NA speaker.

In August this year, an election tribunal had decided in favour of the PTI chairman and ordered fresh elections, but Mr Sadiq managed to win this time as well and was subsequently re-elected to his old position shortly after being de-seated.

But this time around, his margin of victory had been brought down from 9,000 in the 2013 elections to nearly 2,400 in the recent by-polls.

Aleem Khan’s 800-page petition alleges Nadra changed electoral rolls to benefit Ayaz Sadiq

A senior ECP official told Dawn the petition would now be examined by the commission and a decision would be made, based on the evidence provided, either in favour of or against the petitioner.

In case the commission feels the facts of the petition require further investigation, it will be forwarded to the election tribunal, which is already in place.

In the nearly 800-page petition submitted by Aleem Khan through his counsel Salman Akram Raja on Thursday, it is contended that of the 30,000 votes in the constituency that were altered between the general and by-elections, 22,000 lacked the documentary evidence necessary for the transfer process.

In his detailed argument, which was later released through the party’s media wing, the petitioner said that between the May 2013 general election and the Oct 2015 by-elections, 30,500 voters were added, transferred, or deleted from the electoral rolls of the constituency.

Around 7,000 of these votes were new additions to the rolls of young men and women who had attained voting age. Of the remaining 23,000 voters, the petitioner maintained, ECP had only provided documentary evidence for 812 voters. Regarding the remaining 22,000 votes, ECP claimed the changes had been made by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).

In its official response, Nadra said it had already clarified that changes to the voter list were made according to rules and regulations.

Aleem Khan contended that despite repeated requests, Nadra hadn’t provided his party with any record to corroborate this and has asked that, under the 1974 Electoral Rolls Act, suo motu action be taken to void the results of the by-poll.

Talking to reporters on Thursday, Aleem Khan claimed that he had collected enough evidence to prove that the results of the NA-122 by-election were engineered to favour the National Assembly speaker.

“With this kind of evidence, I have no doubt, that Mr Sadiq will be sent packing yet again.”

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2015