QUETTA: Former senator Nawabzada Lashkari Raisani has said he has been fighting for four years the legal battle against the election of PTI candidate Qasim Suri “through rigging of votes” from Quetta’s NA-265 constituency during the 2018 elections. Mr Suri was later elected the National Assembly’s deputy speaker.

Talking to reporters at the Balochistan High Court on Wednesday, Mr Raisani said the nation was witnessing the result of that rigging today, as a person who had no connection with politics and this soil was illegally occupying the post of the deputy speaker. He said he had been fighting the case against Mr Suri for supremacy of the Constitution, parliament and sanctity of the vote in the court of law.

“We filed an application against rigging with the high court’s election tribunal, which disqualified Qasim Suri after rigging was proved in his election with 65,000 bogus votes polled for him. But now he was given the seat of the NA deputy speaker and he is now conducting its proceedings and violating the Constitution and parliamentary traditions,” he added.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2022