Daska by-election: War of words goes on

By News Desk

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: The war of words continued over the results of the NA-75, Sialkot by-election on Sunday with PML-N saying that the vote thieves must be ashamed as they have been defeated, while the government responded that the trickster Rajkumari (Maryam Nawaz) must not blame her theft on others.

On Sunday, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) directed the returning officer of Daska to conduct a complete inquiry over the issue of NA-75 by-poll results.

The Election Commission has received the preliminary report of the returning officer of Daska on the issue of NA-75 by-election results.

National media, quoting sources, reported that the returning officer has suggested a full inquiry in the preliminary report. The Election Commission accepted the suggestion of the returning officer directing him to conduct a complete inquiry. The Election Commission will take a final decision after a detailed report of the returning officer and will review the report in a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday).

According to INP, the returning officer expressed doubts over the results of 20 polling stations in the preliminary report. He also expressed reservations over the role of police and administration in the initial report. It said the results of 20 polling stations arrived with extraordinary delay. The presiding officers of 20 polling stations could not be contacted till 6:00am.

Meanwhile, the PML-N Vice-President Maryam Nawaz said that the PTI government has miserably failed in by-polls despite planned rigging through police and the administration.

Talking to media in Jati Umra before leaving for Daska, she said she was going to greet the people of Daska and will also visit the residence of the PML-N worker who was shot dead during the by-polls.

“PML-N will not leave their workers and their families alone in hard times and will provide them all kind of support,” she announced while responding to a question.

Dodging a question about any possibility of future in-house change, she said at present she will only talk about rigging in by-polls. She said evidence of rigging was emerging on social media and exposed the real face of the government.

She said she saw a video in which a presiding officer was telling that personnel of special branch directed him to not use ECP’s vehicles while taking back the ballot boxes.

“These people should clearly know their position, the people of four provinces of Pakistan have rejected them,” she said. The PML-N leader said that the government had revealed through Daska polls how these people were imposed on the masses back in 2018.

“The 20 presiding officers become missing persons,” she said, adding that the result of these 20 polling stations was changed overnight.

“Sugar thieves, flour thieves, electricity thieves, gas thieves and vote thieves were rejected by the people in all the four provinces of the country,” she added.

To a question about upcoming Senate elections, she said the MNAs and MPAs know the pulse of public sentiment and PTI’s parliamentarians were trying to secure their future politics by finding a shelter.

After reaching Daska, Maryam said while addressing a public gathering that PML-N activist Zeeshan was targeted for guarding the vote.

“If it was known that they would take a life for the sake of one seat, I would have given them this seat for free,” she said.

She claimed that the PTI candidate lost from his own village. Maryam claimed that the government’s own camps were empty and there was a lot of visible support for the PML-N.

On the other hand, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz has urged the Election Commission to notify the victory of PTI candidate Ali Asjad Malhi in by-election of NA 75 as the people of Daska have mandated the ruling party candidate during election.

He expressed these views while talking to journalists along with Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry, Usman Dar, Special Assistant to Chief Minister Punjab Firdous Ashiq Awan and candidate of NA-75 Ali Asjad Malhi.

Shibli Faraz said the PML-N leadership has gone wild and frustrated as the narrative of Nawaz Sharif was gradually losing the support due to the mass acceptance of Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said that the PML-N was badly scared from the narrative of Imran Khan, who wanted to bring transparency in elections by ending rigging in the elections and politics of intimidation. He said the PML-N was in the habit of doing politics of intimidation, hooliganism and money and they repeated their practice by sending vandalism specialists Rana Sanaullah, Javed Latif and others to pollute the atmosphere of electioneering.

Shibli said the leadership of PML-N was shedding crocodile tears which had refreshed the memories of Model Town massacre in which innocent women and children were brutally killed sans any remorse. He alleged that assassination of workers on the polling day was under the patronage of Rana Sanaullah, the man responsible for Model Town killings.

He said he has come to Daska to condole over the assassination of party workers and sympathize with the bereaved families.

Ali Asjad Malhi strongly denied the allegations of enduring defeat in his own village, saying his family had never lost the elections from his village since 1947.

Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said the PML-N was showing double standards and levelling baseless allegations of rigging in Daska s by-poll.

She said that all presiding officers had sent results to returning officer through WhatsApp according to which PTI s Ali Asajd Malhi got 110,957 votes, while PML-N’s Nosheen Iftikhar got 101,879 votes.

She said if the RO had received Forms 45 then why he did not announce the results.

In tweets, Dr Firdous said Maryam Nawaz must put her own house in order before blaming others. She said the Rajkumari is blaming others for the firing by her own party men. She alleged that the PML-N was protecting the killers and drug pushers.

Fawad Chaudhry said his ministry has developed a technology for electronic voting which would be transferred to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) soon.

He said the technology has been developed with the support of National Institute of Electronics, National University of Science and Technology and Comsats and it would help ensure transparency in the election process through electronic voting.

“Electronic voting can help get rid of rigging in elections,” he said.

The minister stated that the opposition complained of rigging in the by-polls only in the constituency where the PTI candidate won, their own candidates won in Nowshera and Wazirabad which they accepted happily.

Rejecting the baseless claims of Maryam Nawaz regarding delay in results in Daska, Fawad Chaudhry said, “We do not live on Mars and are well aware of the fog situation in the area.”

He demanded the ECP to issue formal notification about winning of PTI candidate.

“We have not been celebrating the victory of our candidate due to the deaths of two persons near the polling station in Daska as we are here to express our condolences to the bereaved family members,” he said.

“We lost elections in Karachi and Nowshera but have not raised any allegation of rigging and accepted the results. This is the real difference between a democratic party and a non-democratic party which grew up in the lap of a dictator,” he said.

Meanwhile, the PML-N Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal said the rigging programme of the government in Wazirabad and Daska shows that Imran Khan wants a one-party system in Pakistan, Geo News reported. He alleged that presiding officers were kidnapped in Daska and bogus results were compiled.

In a statement on social media, he said the aim of Imran Khan is not to establish ‘Riasat-e-Madina’ but to establish ‘Riasat-e-Hitler’.

The PML-N Punjab spokesperson Azma Bukhari said in a statement the people of Daska, Wazirabad and Nowshera had performed the funeral of fake change. She said the entire nation witnessed the drama of Firdous Ashiq Awan in NA-75.

“Imran Niazi now wants to steal the mandate of PML-N by kidnapping the presiding officers,” she said.

“Usman Dar and Firdous Ashiq have played an important role in the defeat of Asjad Malhi,” she said.

Azma sarcastically said earlier Irrigation Department used to kidnap the presiding staff, and now the duty had been given to the special branch. She said that the employees of the state should be ashamed of serving a single person.