KARACHI, May 12: Allegations of widespread rigging in major cities and towns of Sindh have been levelled against the Pakistan Peoples Party by its opponents, who also sought fresh polling under the supervision of the army, it emerged on Sunday.
In Larkana, Mumtaz Bhutto, who had merged his Sindh National Front party into the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, declared at a press conference earlier in the day that he had visited a polling station where ballot papers were being stamped at gunpoint. The senior Bhutto was appropriately distressed since his son Amir Baksh Bhutto contesting from PS-37 (Larkana III) had secured 17,100 votes (unofficial result) and lost by narrow margin against the Pakistan Peoples Party’s Mohammad Ali Bhutto (no relation to the father and son), who had polled 19,500 votes.
Similar cases of rigging were claimed in two of National Assembly and one of provincial assembly seats in Larkana. The three Abbassis — Munawar Ali, Safdar and Moazzam Ali — said in their press conference on Sunday that results from less than half of the polling stations had still not been released and ballot stuffing and ballot paper stamping by presiding officers were among the other occurrences of rigging in their constituencies.
Prominent television personality and Pakistan Muslim League-Functional candidate from NA-204 (Larkana-I) Mehtab Akbar Rashdi reported that polling agents of her party were intimidated and forced to leave the polling stations, ceding control to PPP workers. She too was waiting for the result till the filing of this report and further demanded re-polling not only on NA-204 but also PS-36 (Larkana-II), PS-38 (Larkana-IV) and PS-41 (Larkana-VII) under the supervision of the army.
In Sukkur, an intriguing case of rigging allegation came to light in which infighting within a political party resulted in trading of accusations that benefited another political party. Details of the case go like this: Senator Islamuddin Shaikh of the PPP claimed that his party associate Syed Khursheed Shah along with his associate Pehlaj Mal, former special assistant to former chief minister Qaim Ali Shah, had instructed their supporters to not vote for his son Noman Shaikh, who was contesting from PS-I (Sukkur). He alleged that his colleagues had even gone as far as telling their supporters to vote for their opponent Saleem Bandhani of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). It seemed that the putative plot hatched by Khursheed Shah and Co worked since Mr Bandhani had been unofficially declared the winner by 2,500 votes.
Election result of PS-29 (Khairpur-I) featuring former CMs Syed Ghous Ali Shah of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Syed Qaim Ali Shah of the PPP has also come under the cloud of rigging. In a press briefing on Sunday, Ghous Ali Shah demanded that the result be withheld and an inquiry be conducted on the bogus votes cast. Unofficial result has declared Ghous Ali Shah as the losing candidate in PS-29 (Khairpur-I). Ghous Ali Shah was so infuriated that he claimed he had never held a news conference pertaining to election result even though he was a veteran of several elections.
Mir Inayat Talpur of the PML-F was also displeased with the polling in PS-53 (Tando Mohammad Khan) and said at a news conference that he and his party members had come upon ballot papers that were pre-stamped on the arrow, the electoral symbol of PPP.
By far the most violent reaction over an alleged electoral fraud took place in Nawabshah on Sunday where a clash took place between workers of the MQM and the PPP that left three people dead and 11 injured. The PS-24 Nawabshah MQM candidate Asim Kabir Khanzada claimed that a number of ballot boxes had been stolen and that police officials deployed outside the polling stations had been partial to their opponents.
All the wronged candidates after disclosing the instances of rigging said in their news conferences that they tried to inform election commission officials about these occurrences but felt that their efforts were in vain.
Ms Rashdi of the PML-F said that she had sent written complaints to the district returning officer in Larkana and to the Election Commission of Pakistan, Islamabad.
Mir Inayat Talpur also of the PML-F in Tando Mohammad Khan said that he submitted his written complaint to the returning officer but she did not bother taking the letter from him.