KOHAT: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has accused PML-N of pre-poll rigging by distributing and installing electricity poles and transformers which it had stocked in Kohat before the end of its federal government.

It said that PML-N candidate in NA-32, former senator Abbas Afridi, had got sanctioned transformers and poles during his party’s government in the centre and he was now installing them in PK-80.

Talking to this correspondent here on Thursday, PTI candidate for PK-80, Aftab Alam, said that they had been complaining against it, but no action was taken as yet. Answering a question that their complaints in this regard had been turned down as wrong, he said that anyone could visit Bilitang where the cement mixture of poles had not dried up as yet.

PTI candidate in NA-32 Sheharyar Afridi at a meeting held at the district bar hall on Thursday asked the district monitoring officer/deputy commissioner, Kohat, Khalid Ilyas that his opponent, Abbas Afridi, was bribing the voters by distributing power transformers and poles.

He said it was affecting the election process and must be stopped.

Mr Ilyas said that he had deputed his monitoring staff throughout the district to report any pre-poll rigging and had already taken action in such cases. The concerned SDO Pesco had reported to him that it was the job of the department and no private person could install transformers and poles.

District councillor of the suspended local body, Fahim Shah, and an elder Sajid Khan of Bilitang, when contacted, said that in the beginning transformers and poles were installed, but after Sheharyar Afridi got stay order in this regard the practice was stopped.

The election commission official, however, told this correspondent that the right forum for lodging such complaints was the office of district returning officer and not that of the monitoring officer.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2018