ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will investigate Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan’s allegation of rigging in NA-68 (Sargodha), a seat won by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the May 11 general elections and retained by his party in the bye-elections held on Aug 22 last year.

An ECP official told Dawn that relevant record would be summoned to see if something went wrong. He, however, pointed out that presiding officers were issued ballot papers in accordance with the number of registered voters and observed that it was apparently not possible.

Imran Khan has alleged that over 100 per cent votes were polled at polling station number 246 in NA-68 constituency. He claimed that over 8,000 votes were polled while the number of registered voters was around 1,500.

Mr Sharif won the 2013 polls from NA-68 with a huge margin. He secured 140,546 votes while his closest rival Noor Hayat Kalyar of PTI could bag only 45,463 votes followed by Syed Nusrat Ali Shah of PPP who secured 21,395 votes.

Mr Sharif had decided to retain his seat from Lahore, NA-120, and vacated the seat from Sargodha. In the bye-polls the PML-N fielded Sardar Shafqat Hayat Khan as its candidate, who defeated PTI’s Malik Nazir Ahmad Sobhi with a clear margin. Sardar Shafqat secured 67,888 votes, Sobhi 40169 votes and Sardar Ali Abbas Baloch of PPP 3,088 votes.

Under the law, election petitions can be filed within 45 days of the official announcement of election results.

But, no such petition was filed by the PTI after PML-N’s Sardar Shafqat Hayat was officially declared as victor in bye-polls.

Sardar Shafqat, when contacted, termed Imran Khan’s allegation as baseless and said over 100 per cent votes were not polled at even a single polling station of his constituency.

He said both the PTI and PPP candidates had reached the office of the returning officer soon after the end of polling time while he reached there when half of the work relating to vote count was complete. He said he won the election with a margin of over 27,000 votes.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2014