LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan on Wednesday visited the office of the Punjab Election Commissioner and submitted an application to the election tribunal member, requesting him not to link decisions on petitions about alleged rigging in NA-122 with that of PP-147 (Lahore).

The tribunal member, Kazim Ali Malik, had on Tuesday reserved verdict on a petition of PTI’s Shoaib Siddiqui who challenged victory of Mohsin Latif of PML-N from PP-147, alleging rigging.

The tribunal, however, linked the announcement of the verdict with the decision of a pending petition of Imran Khan against the victory of National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq from NA-122, Lahore.

In his application, Mr Khan requested the tribunal to announce the reserved verdict without waiting for the decision on his petition.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Jahangir Tareen and other senior PTI leaders accompanied their party chief when he appeared before the tribunal.

Talking to the media outside the ECP office, Mr Khan announced he would make public, what he called proofs of the alleged rigging committed by the ruling PML-N in the 2013 general election. “I will present all proofs of the rigging at a press conference on Friday (tomorrow),” he said and added he would also move Supreme Court on the basis of these “proofs”.

Citing a report of the inspection carried out by a commission in PP-147, he said record of 60 polling stations out of a total of 115 was not found. The ballots found in the record were unverified, he added.

Mr Khan said the PTI had won in one (PP-148) out of the two provincial assembly’s constituencies falling under NA-122 and the commission’s report revealed the “facts” of the lost constituency (PP-147).

“If I had been in Nawaz Sharif’s place, I would have ordered recounting and inspection of the whole election record,” the PTI chief claimed. He also announced that criminal proceedings would be initiated against returning officers (ROs) of the 2013 election for their role in the alleged rigging.

When asked, Mr Khan said he had full trust in Kazim Ali Malik, the member of the election tribunal. He urged the tribunal to decide the case of NA-122 at the earliest so that the public could know the reality behind the victory of Sardar Ayaz Sadiq. He regretted that Sadiq had been hiding himself behind a stay order against the tribunal’s proceedings for one year.

He said it would be very unfair if public came to know after a period of 18 months that the speaker of the National Assembly was elected on bogus votes. The election tribunal had already directed Mr Khan to produce his witnesses on Nov 29 in the NA-122 rigging case.

Speaking to the media after attending the funeral prayers for PTI’s founder leader Ahsan Rasheed at Nisar Colony, Cantt, Imran Khan said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wanted Husni Mubarak’s democracy, which could not sustain.

He said the PTI workers would reach D-Chowk in Islamabad come what may.

He said the government was installing containers to block the PTI workers from participating in party’s decisive sit-in on Sunday.

Mr Khan said Privatisation Commission Chairman Muhammad Zubair had sold his conscience for commission. He said Zubair should be ashamed of pointing fingers at party’s secretary-general Jehangir Tareen and added he (Zubair) had closed his eyes on the proofs against the Sharif family. He said the Sharif family members were also travelling in jet planes. He asked how much tax Sharif family had given on account of its sugar mills.

Mr Khan said the PML-N had had first rigged the general elections and now it was not allowing others to seek justice.

Published in Dawn, November 27th , 2014