Massive rigging was reported during polling at the two provincial constituencies of PP 243 and PP 245 in Dera Ghazi Khan on Monday.
The two seats of the Punjab Assembly fell vacant after Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid legislator Mohsin Khan Leghari and senior adviser to the Punjab chief minister Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa resigned. The two have been elected as senators.
Zulfiqar Ali Khosa’s son Hasamuddin Khosa was contesting in PP 243 on the ticket of the PML-N while six other candidates were contesting independently. Meanwhile, eight candidates, including Muhammad Khan Leghari of the PML-Q and Mirza Talpur of the PML-N were contesting in PP 245.
According to reports, a PML-N polling agent forced women to vote in favour of her party’s leader at the Sawarwali polling station. Sawarwali is the 57th polling station for the women of the PP-243 constituency in DG Khan.
The polling agent of PML-N candidate Hasamuddin was seen snatching ballot papers from the voters, forcing them to mark her representative. The agent also verified if the voter had marked the right box or not before putting it in the box.
According to unofficial results, Hasamuddin Khosa won the by-polls in PP 243 while independent candidate Imtiaz Leghari stood second in the run to victory. Khosa obtained 25,518 votes while 19,205 votes were cast in Imtiaz Leghari’s favour. In PP-245, Muhammad Khan Leghari of the PML-Q won the by-elections exceeding Mirza Talpur of the PML-N. The winning candidate obtained 24,584 while the second-placed candidate got 11,748 votes.
It is worth mentioning here that no candidate from the Pakistan People’s Party is contesting from both the constituencies, however, the PPP ticket-holder for the 2008 elections, Dr Saeed Buzdar had announced to contest the election as an independent candidate.
In a late night development, the state television reported that the Election Commission has withheld the result of the PP-243 constituency from where Hasamuddin Khosa had won the election according to unofficial result.
The PPP fearing defeat fielded no candidate. This is what it has been reduced to by AZ, Gill, Bilawal the fairy, Abdul Qadir the Hajji tormenter, and Musa Gillani the drug peddler
It will be a litmus test whether Iftikhar Chaudhry takes suo moto notice of video clips showing rigging in PP-243 by a PML-N candidate in Punjab like he took action on video clip of Waheeda Shah a PPP candidate in Sindh. Usually, Iftikhar Chaudhry is a habitual failure in such tests.
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