HYDERABAD, Oct 18: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Friday decided to challenge the results of NA-220 (Hyderabad-III) and PS-45 (Hyderabad-III) before the election tribunal.

The Muttahida legislators were addressing a joint press conference at the local press club here.

They urged the government, the observers from the European Union and the Election Commissioner, to take stock of what they termed unprecedented rigging and election-related irregularities.

Those, who spoke on the occasion, included, the MNA-elect from NA-219, Prof Khalid Wahab, and MPAs-elect Arshad Shah (PS- 46), Naeem Ishtiaq (PS-48) and Aslam Pervez (PS-49).

Arshad Shah criticised the government’s claims regarding free and fair election, saying the Muttahida workers possessed ballot papers, carrying stamps on the party’s symbol, collected from different areas of NA-220 (Hyderabad-III) and NA-231 (Dadu-I).

He said such ballots had also been collected from garbage heaps near St Bonaventure Boys’ High School

Expressing his surprise over no mention of rejected votes from 31 polling stations’ statements of count while the same polling stations’ statement of consolidation mentioned 198 rejected votes.

He said that the polling station No. 20’s statement of count did not carry the name of the Muttahida’s candidate, Farooque Qureshi. He accused the Haqiqi workers of torturing the Muttahida’s polling agents at polling station No166 in NA-220.