ISLAMABAD, Dec 5: The National Assembly made a hot start to its winter session on Thursday, with opposition parties taking the government on frontally over its sacking of the Nadra chief. They said the dismissal had strengthened their suspicions about rigging in the May 11 election.

This provoked a strong charge-sheet against the official from Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan even though the issue was before two top courts.

Monday’s dismissal of Tariq Malik, Chairman of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) tasked to verify disputed votes in several National Assembly and provincial assembly constituencies in Punjab and Sindh — and its suspension by the Islamabad High Court — dominated the opening day of the session.

There was little restraint from either side even after the house learnt that the government had filed an appeal before the Supreme Court earlier in the day, seeking reversal of the high court’s order.

Opposition leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan and vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and Jamaat-i-Islami’s parliamentary leader Sahibzada Tariqullah all saw ulterior motives behind the government’s move. They cited the reported midnight delivery of the sacking order to the official at a time when Nadra was in the process of verifying voters’ thumb impressions in a National Assembly constituency of Lahore.

The PPP and PTI leaders smelt a rat, particularly in the timing of the government action, which they said had strengthened the doubts or reservations they had initially expressed about the fairness of the general election, although both parties had accepted the overall result.

But Chaudhry Nisar appeared well prepared for the onslaught and was encouraged by repeated desk-thumping from government benches as he broke out of an initial hesitation to speak on a sub judice matter.

He unleashed charge after charge against the Nadra chief, ranging from irregularities in his appointment to the highly paid post last year for a three-year contract until Augusts 2015 by the previous government, administrative insubordination and what he called “constant leaks” to the media without permission about the voter verification process.

And at one stage, the minister, who also had complaints about the media’s perceived failure to differentiate between truth and untruth, said: “How Nadra chairman is responsible about (the verification of) thumb impressions? The (interior) ministry is responsible.”

On being reminded by the opposition leader of the minister’s offer in a previous house session to let voter verification be done in 40 constituencies, instead of just the PTI-identified four in Lahore, Chaudhry Nisar said he could not do it at his discretion as it was the Election Commission’s domain. He said he would not mind “if it were done in four constituencies, 40 constituencies or (all the directly elected) 272 constituencies” of the National Assembly.

And he could tell the result of such an exercise in advance, saying “60,000 to 70,000 votes will not be verified” in a constituency – citing cases of such large numbers of votes remaining unverified in a couple of Karachi constituencies – because the comparatively more efficient synthetic ink had not been used for taking thumb impressions.

Mr Shah and Mr Qureshi had a second go each at the minister’s tirade, with the opposition leader recalling his party’s description of the polls as “ROs’ (returning officers’) election” and saying that although he was not directly blaming the PML-N, “there is someone who did the rigging”.

Mr Qureshi wondered what would now happen to his party’s challenges before election tribunals to the results of 65 constituencies and a writ petition about the verification of votes in four constituencies of Lahore.

Railways Minister Saad Rafiq took pains to paint the PTI’s outbursts about alleged election fraud as “immaturity” and was confronted by a PTI member from Karachi, Arif Alvi, calling the action against Nadra chief a “drone attack” against elections.

Strangely, neither side talked about the continuing PTI sit-ins in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa against Nato supplies to and from Afghanistan in protest against US drone attacks in the tribal areas and of a demonstration held by the party outside the Parliament House before the start of the session.