LAHORE: Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique has apparently suffered a setback as the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), during inspection of the election record from five polling stations of his Lahore constituency, NA-125, has detected several discrepancies, including duplicate votes and invalid national identity cards which were used for voting.

The Faisalabad Election Tribunal’s Member Javed Rasheed Mahboobi had ordered Nadra, as the third commission in the case, to inspect the election material and verify the fingerprints of voters and identity card numbers written on counterfoils of ballot papers cast in the general elections.

Senior lawyer Hamid Khan, the runner-up in the constituency and belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, had sought inspection of the record, alleging that Mr Rafiq had rigged the elections held last year.

The proceedings on the petition were transferred to Faisalabad from Lahore when Mr Khan had expressed distrust over the member of the tribunal in the provincial capital.

A retired sessions judge, being commission No 1 and the chairman of the National Forensic Science Agency (NFSA), as commission No 2, had earlier submitted their reports to the tribunal after inspecting the election material. They also had raised serious questions about the election material.

There were 125 used counterfoils which had the CNIC numbers which were never issued by Nadra, the report submitted on Saturday said. The tribunal had randomly selected five polling stations (5, 6, 98, 107 and 110) of the constituency for token inspection by the National Database and Registration Authority.

The report said there were six duplicate votes polled by three voters, while 1,254 thumb impressions on used counterfoils and 451 on electoral rolls were authenticated by Nadra’s automated fingerprint identification system.

The system failed to verify 14 thumb impressions, but could not decipher 84 impressions on counterfoils and 26 on electoral rolls because of bad quality.

The report said 10 entries had been found where no thumb impression was affixed on the electoral roll but had been held in the comparable category by the NFSA.

The inspection was held in the presence of representatives of both the candidates.

The tribunal included the report in the case record and sought arguments from both sides at the next hearing.

Published in Dawn December 14th , 2014