RAWALPINDI, May 18: The demand for counting votes again has become a fashion, at least in the garrison city, after the victory of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf’s Sadeeq Khan from PP-7 and the defeat of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
Earlier, Nisar Ali Khan, former opposition leader in the national assembly from the Pakistan Muslim League-N, had won the seat by getting 48,109 votes against Sadeeq Khan’s 47,795, but after re-counting, the PML-N heavyweight had lost the seat with 774 votes.
This move provided hope to other candidates, especially the PTI candidate in PP-6, where Chaudhry Nisar had won as an independent candidate by securing 51,766 votes against PTI’s Wasiq Qayyum Abbasi, who managed to get 49,259 votes.
Wasiq Qayyum Abbasi also submitted an application with the election commission for re-counting claiming that the difference was hardly of 2,000 votes and 2,500 votes had gone missing because the polling staff had helped the former regional chief of PML-N.
“I have submitted the application with ECP and it has given May 21 as the date for the decision. Our point is that the ratio of votes at the two provincial assemblies should equal the national assembly seat, as the polling staff had given two ballot papers to every voter; one for the national assembly and one for the provincial assembly,” he said.
“It is not possible that for example 100,000 votes are polled for the national assembly and 75,000 for the provincial assembly. This is what happened in PP-6, where 2,500 votes went missing and we believe these votes were not counted so that Nisar Ali Khan could be declared the winner,” he explained.
Mr. Abbasi was hopeful that the difference of only 2,000 votes would result in re-counting and the PTI would win the seat.
“The PTI wanted the counting to be done again even before the notification of official results, and submitted two applications to the Chief Election Commissioner,” he said.
Interestingly, Chaudhry Nisar had decided to contest the seat as an independent with the election symbol of a cow instead of PML-N symbol tiger.
There were differences between Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Chaudhry Tanveer Khan, both PML-N leaders, as the latter wanted to get the party ticket for his nephew, Sarfraz Afzal, but Nisar was not comfortable and convinced the party as well.
For PML-N leadership, both leaders were dear, and thus it opted to allow Nisar to contest the election as an independent candidate.
However, Nisar Ali Khan managed to settle the issue and Sarfraz Afzal announced retirement from this seat. However, both Mr Afzal and Tanveer Khan did not run the election campaign of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on this seat.
PML-N candidates from NA-56, NA-55 and PP-9 also alleged that the PTI was involved in rigging. They demanded that the votes in these areas should be counted again and verified through thumb impressions according to the Nadra record.
Hanif Abbasi, who lost from NA-56, submitted an application with the ECP on May 16 and Malik Shakil Awan on Saturday (May 18) also followed suit.
While talking to Dawn, former MNA Malik Shakil Awan said the PTI’s candidate from PP-12, Ijaz Khan Jazi, and Sheikh Rashid Ahmed’s nephew Rashid Shafique, had rigged the elections at Government Faizul Islam School.
“The polling staff hid the stamp forcing PML-N supporters to wander around while PTI workers were allowed to cast fake votes,” he said.
He added that the PTI and AML workers had stolen the PML-N mandate in the garrison city, and thumb impression verification would clear things.
Regarding the rigging allegations of the PTI in PP-6 and PP-7, Malik Shakil Awan said PTI was afraid of the popularity of PML-N leader Nisar Ali Khan and used unfair means to include fake votes during re-counting.
