KARACHI: Politician Nabeel Gabol, who resigned as a Member of National Assembly as well as from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in February, alleged that the elections in NA-246 in May 2013 were not free of rigging.

In an interview during a program on Geo Television on Thursday, Gabol said he himself was an eyewitness to fake ballot papers being stamped in NA-246. He added that not only were the polls rigged in Karachi's Azizabad constituency, various other constituencies of Karachi and Punjab also saw rigging during the general election.

"On polling day, I visited polling stations in my constituency and saw very few people casting votes," said Gabol during the interview. "I spoke to those concerned and informed them that voter turnout was very low... but was told that voters are not needed you have won, go home and rest."

Gabol said that when the results came out, he was astounded to find that he had received 140,000 votes despite the low turn-out.

"I went to a polling station in Karimabad; there were barely 12-13 people there voting," Gabol said. "When I went inside the polling station I saw that in the ladies' area, ballots were being stamped en masse."

He said he fled from the scene fearing that television cameras might capture his face on the spot.

During the interview, Gabol also said that when he visited the Rabita Committee office at the Nine-Zero headquarters of the MQM, party leader Anees Qaimkhani was present along with other party members who assured him that he would get 140,000-150,000 votes.

Read: MQM's Nabeel Gabol resigns from National Assembly

The former MQM leader had tendered his resignation from the National Assembly in February, hinting at differences surfacing between him and the party as the reason.

Gabol's resignation left the NA-246 seat vacant.

The NA-246 constituency of Karachi is made up of areas that have been at the centre of political power in the city for over 26 years now.

The constituency has a number of heavily populated concentrations of Urdu-speakers (also known as Mohajirs) that first began to settle in these areas from 1953 onward.

Most of these concentrated clusters belong to the middle and lower-middle classes of the city, and the literacy rate in this constituency is also one of the highest in Karachi.

The bye-polls in NA-246, scheduled to be held on April 23, are expected to be a three-way contest between Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's Imran Ismail, MQM's Kanwar Naveed Jamil and Jamaat-i-Islami's (JI's) Rashid Naseem.

Also read: Karachi's NA-246 by-poll: A three-way contest

When asked whether he was resigning under pressure, Gabol had said: “I am not a goat that can be pulled in any direction by anyone or tied to a post. I hold my personal following in Karachi and Sindh; no one has the guts to threaten me.”

"I am more of an unguided missile while MQM is a pretty organised party so this kinship wasn’t going to last long anyway,” Gabol had explained. “I will soon be involved in much bigger politics than this, since the political arena inside MQM is not favourable for national level politics, whereas I want to play big.”

After being practically sidelined by the Pakistan Peoples Party leadership, Gabol had joined MQM in 2013 —months before the general election — to what he called “serve the people of Lyari”. Later he won the NA-246 seat in Karachi on MQM’s ticket.

Previously, Gabol has been elected MNA from Lyari (in 2008) on a PPP ticket. He became minister of state for ports and shipping, but later resigned from the post. He has been winning elections from Lyari for over two decades. He has also served as deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly.