LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz said on Sunday that the alleged plan of rigging the NA-75 (Daska) by-elections has fully exposed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

“The rigging (attempt) in the NA-75 by-polls clearly shows the credibility and popularity of the PTI government in the people’s eyes and how it came into power in 2018’s general elections,” Maryam said while speaking to reporters at her Jati Umra residence before leaving to Daska to show her gratitude to the people “who gave respect to vote to the last moment”.

According to her, the government tried to rig the election by using police and the administration, but remained unsuccessful due to intervention of people. “Despite the implementation and the use of ‘worst state terrorism’ to enforce its plan, the government had miserably failed.

This is a glaring thing that they used every tactic and are now out in the open and stand exposed and they should now know their standing in the eyes of the people,” she added.

She said two people lost their lives during the alleged rigging process “just because the PTI government was getting embarrassed in the eyes of public after it lost two seats – one in Noshera and the other in Wazirabad”. “When the government could not rig the results, it picked up 20 presiding officers and made them, missing persons,” she said.

She questioned why out of the 361 polling stations, the staff of only 20 polling stations had to go missing during the "fog" and why were the results of these polling stations suddenly changed when the officers returned after 12-14 hours.

On Friday, the NA-75 by-polls were marred after clashes between voters and police in multiple places, including polling stations and a police station at several times during the day.

PML-N leaders and supporters accused authorities of preventing voters from casting their ballots.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had said it suspected results of 20 polling stations had been falsified in the by-election for the NA-75 constituency as the PML-N alleged massive rigging.

The commission said results of the NA-75 constituency were received with "unnecessary delay", adding that it tried to contact the presiding officers several times but to not avail.

The PML-N senior leader claimed that she has a footage in which a presiding officer can be seen acknowledging that unidentified men had arrived in a car and tried to pressure him to return with them with the ballot box instead of in the official ECP vehicle, which he had refused.

“These evidences are coming out and the government has now fully come out into the open,” she added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021