KASUR: The returning officer on Thursday rejected the nomination papers of PTI candidate Sardar Talib Nakai on the allegation that he had helped his wife and son write off Rs500 million loan and concealed it in the papers.

Talib Nakai, son-in-law of former chief minister Arif Nakai, aspired for contesting the forthcoming general election from the PTI platform for NA-140. His political rival in the constituency is PML-N’s Rana Muhammad Hayat.

Rana Khizar Hayat and Rana Faisal Hayat, sons of Muhammad Hayat, submitted written objections to Returning Officer Saima Asad regarding concealing and misdeclaration of fact that loan had been written off by his (Nakai’s) spouse Shahida Talib. The complainants also submitted supporting documents and contended that the family was defaulter.

The judgment of the returning officer said the report of the State Bank received by the scrutiny cell of the Election Commission of Pakistan stated that Nakai’s spouse is director/owner of companies mentioned therein having written off Rs2 million and above in the last one year.

The judgment also said the detail of the said financial institutions and amount written off and overdue had been mentioned in the said report of June 12, 2018.

When asked by the returning officer to respond to the allegations, the candidate could only present an NOC of SAMBA bank but he had no such document of any other financial institution from which the family sought loans.

The returning officer accepted the allegations and declared Talib Nakai disqualified under article 63 (n) of the Constitution and articles 60 and 61 of Election Act 2017.

Sardar Talib Nakai joined the PTI a few months ago and was awarded the ticket by the party.

Now Rana Hayat of the PML-Q would face JI’s Haji Muhammad Ramzan who said after the disqualification of Nakai many parties were in contact with him for seat adjustment but he had left the decision to his party leadership.

Meanwhile, a returning officer asked former PML-N MPA Malik Ahmed Saeed to come up with proof on the next date regarding his loan worth Rs50 million from a private bank. The officials of the private bank were already in the court when Saeed reached there for the scrutiny of his nomination papers.

Saeed had submitted his papers against former PML-N MPA Nadeem Yaqoob. The home constituency of Saeed had been deleted in the new delimitation.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2018