ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will take up the National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri’s appeal against the Election Tribunal on April 5, 2021.

An election tribunal of the Balochistan High Court (BHC) on 27th September 2019 had declared the election of Qasim Suri as "null and void" over vote rigging and ordered re-election in the NA-265 (Quetta-II) constituency.

The NA deputy speaker then challenged the tribunal's verdict before the Supreme Court, which on October 7, 2019, reinstated him after suspending the election tribunal’s decision.

Suri informed the apex court that the tribunal did not review the evidence properly, adding that his disqualification verdict should be declared "null and void."

Suri had won the election after receiving 25,979 votes, while Raisani had received 20,394 votes, according to the Election Commission.

The electoral body had rejected a total of 3,422 votes in the constituency.

Suri’s election victory was challenged by BNP’s Nawabzada Raisani, accusing him of rigging the vote.

The election tribunal ordered re-election in the constituency by nullifying the previous result.

Raisani stated in his petition that a total of 114,000 votes were cast in his constituency out of which a huge number of votes were declared invalid.

The election was "rigged brazenly" and 65,000 votes were not verified.

The ECP checked the votes cast in the area and was not able to biometrically verify the 52,756 votes.

Several votes had incorrect CNIC numbers and in some votes the same CNIC number had been used multiple times.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021