ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has sought resignation of National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq till the completion of verification of votes in his NA-122 constituency by the election tribunal.

The NA-122 is one of the four constituencies where the PTI had sought a recount and verification of voters’ thumb impressions. Mr Sadiq had defeated Mr Khan in the 2013 general elections and the PTI challenged the results.

In a statement issued here on Monday, Imran Khan criticised the election tribunal for not opening up NA-122 for a vote recount and verification of thumbprints despite an overwhelming evidence of irregularities.

He said he wondered why the NA speaker was seeking shelter behind courts’ stay orders, one after another, instead of having the moral courage to go through vote and thumbprint verifications. Under these circumstances, he said, Ayaz Sadiq had lost his moral credibility and should resign as NA Speaker till the completion of the verification process.

PTI chief claims Ayaz Sadiq has lost moral credibility; criticises election tribunal

Referring to Nadra reports, Mr Khan said that during an investigation into the vote count in PP-147 which fell under NA-122, evidences of wrongdoing had been found. It revealed that in six polling stations opened up so far, 3,267 of the 4,726 votes could not be verified.

The National Database and Registration Authority found that CNIC numbers written on 696 vote counterfoils were fake. Besides, 69 per cent of the votes polled in the six polling stations were found to be bogus, Mr Khan said.

Time for recounting votes is over: Imran Khan

Interestingly, he said, 117 polling stations in PP-147 fell under NA-122 from where he had contested. In the six polling stations, there were also 1,590 counterfoils that carried fingerprints of bad quality because of non-utilisation of proper ink. He regretted that the election tribunal judge had committed to opening up the entire PP-147 for verification if discrepancies were found in the six polling stations but so far nothing had been done in this regard.

Another glaring sign of blatant rigging was the discovery of seven bags of votes in the six polling stations when a polling station is required to have only one bag. If the opening up of a mere six polling stations revealed such massive fraud, the opening up of the 290 polling stations of NA-122 would produce even more shocking evidence of vote tampering and rigging, Mr Khan said.

He said the PTI would expose the electoral fraud because it was people’s right to know who had stolen their mandate. They would be brought to justice. Without the exposure of fraud and punishment for those involved in the rigging, he added, future electoral reforms would be meaningless.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2014