Mazari says commission found major irregularities in polling process which substantiated PTI’s claims
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Information Secretary Shireen Mazari on Saturday rejected the government’s claims regarding the enquiry commission’s report into alleged irregularities in NA-122 constituency in Lahore.
“During Saturday’s hearing, the commission’s judge said that his mandate is only to see what irregularities were committed in the polls and now it is up to the election tribunal judge to give a verdict on rigging in the light of the irregularities that have been put on the record,” Mazari said in a statement..
“For the government to claim that no rigging has been found is a blatant lie,” she added in the statement.
Mazari said that the major irregularities found by commission included absence of Form XIV and XV in several polling bags. She said that forms XV not containing the serial numbers would lead to an annulment of the relevant polling stations’ results.
“The commission also found different coloured ballot papers during the probe. The commission judge referred to ‘minor discrepancies’ which, when asked to clarify, he defined as ‘where there were at least 10 votes at issue is a minor discrepancy.’ The commission found these “minor discrepancies” in 280 polling stations, which adds up to 2800 votes,” Mazari said.
The PTI leader said the commission had substantiated PTI’s claims on the types of rigging that had taken place. “The NA-122 commission findings also are in line with the rigging highlighted by Aitzaz Ahsan in his white paper on NA 124,” she said.