LAHORE: Rejecting the July 25 vote results as rigged, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has demanded the formation of a judicial commission to investigate the rigging allegations and has announced issuing a white paper on the polling day events.

The July 25 polls were the most controversial one in the electoral history of the country and the party rejects its results and demands forming a judicial commission like the one formed by the N government back in 2013-14 to probe the rigging allegations, PML-N leaders Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal and Senator Mushahidullah Khan told a press conference after a meeting of the central working committee (CWC) of the party here on Sunday.

MNAs-elect of the party also attended the CWC held with party President Shahbaz Shairf in the chair to discuss the national political scenario and for consultations on whether its parliamentarians-elect should take oath of their offices or boycott the parliamentary proceedings as being suggested by some other opposition parties.

The participants were divided on the boycott issue as hawks in the party proposed adopting an aggressive path to protest against “theft” of the PML-N mandate in several constituencies, says a source. Those speaking at the press conference did not touch on the issue.

CWC meeting says white paper will be issued on polling day events

Briefing the media, MNA-elect Khwaja Asif also announced that the party would issue a white paper containing evidence of polling-day rigging collected from across the country which would also be put before the proposed commission.

He hoped that there would be no problem in setting up the commission with the same terms of reference (TORs) as were for the panel formed by the PML-N government.

The former defence minister said the CWC also expressed its concerns at deaths of workers at the hands of law-enforcement personnel in Mansehra and Murree when they were protesting against alleged rigging in their respective areas. He said the caretaker government must take notice of it and order a judicial inquiry into the deaths.

Terming the July 25 polls the most controversial exercise, Mr Iqbal said in fact the economic future of the country had been plundered by handing over charge of the national affairs to what he said an inexperienced party through pre-poll and polling-day rigging.

He lamented that for the first time media censorship was imposed in the elections.

Referring to cases and police raids on the houses of the PML-N workers who had protested against the rigging, he called upon the caretaker set-up to withdraw the cases for averting political bitterness in the democratic process.

Otherwise, the ex-interior minister warned, people would be forced to come out on roads for claiming their right to protest.

Mushahidullah, who is also party’s information secretary, said they would never accept results of the rigged polls and would take every recourse possible and could also launch a joint movement along with other parties on the issue.

The senator also demanded that the Chief Justice of Pakistan take a suo motu notice of the deaths during protests.

Khawaja Asif warned that those responsible for the deterioration of the health of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif, serving a 10-year term in corruption and money laundering case, would be held responsible.

Kh Asif said Mr Sharif had undergone heart surgery twice and his condition worsened because of the conditions he was being kept in the jail.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2018