The Lahore High Court (LHC) has issued notices for May 19 to Member of the National Assembly Sumaira Malik and other candidates from NA-69 in Khushab following a petition by Malik Umer Aslam Awan challenging her election. The court has ordered the Election Commission to keep the NA-69 election record.
The petitioner, a defeated candidate, claimed the commission had changed his "victory into defeat" by rigging. He said Sumaira had managed thousands of fake votes in her favour by using the state machinery at the behest of her bureaucrat husband.
He claimed that the returning officer also cleared hundreds of votes in her favour, which were earlier cancelled by the presiding officers of different polling stations. Sumaira's henchmen picked up seven presiding officers after the polling ended, he said.
He also claimed that Sumaira Malik was never a graduate till 2002 as she passed her intermediate in 1981 and later her husband who was then additional secretary of schools managed a fake BA degree for his wife. Moreover, she was also a defaulter of Allied Bank Ltd and the matter was pending before the court.