The PTI slammed the PML-N government on Thursday for allegedly employing rigging tactics in support of its candidate in Lahore\u2019s NA-129 by-election.<\/p>\n
The by-election is scheduled for Sunday. The party claimed that campaigning began with state personnel tearing down the PTI candidate\u2019s banners and posters, managing polling stations and then appointing subordinates of the PML-N candidate, who has served as chairman of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) Board of Directors (BoD).<\/p>\n
The PTI leaders allege that this amounts to an orchestrated attempt to tilt the electoral playing field in favour of the ruling party\u2019s candidate, Muhammad Nauman.<\/p>\n
The NA-129 seat, vacated after the death of Mian Muhammad Azhar, is being contested by his nephew, Chaudhry Arslan, who was nominated by Azhar\u2019s son and former PTI Punjab acting president Hammad Azhar. The junior Azhar is absconding as he is wanted by the state in different cases.<\/p>\n
The PTI is contesting the by-election only in Lahore, where the seat was vacated, while boycotting all by-elections in Sargodha, Mianwali, Sahiwal, Faisalabad, DG Khan and Muzaffargarh. The polls were scheduled after PTI MPAs were disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).<\/p>\n
Incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan had strictly instructed the party leadership not to contest the by-elections as it would be tantamount to legitimising the disqualification of party legislators.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe disqualified MPAs had believed in the PTI and didn\u2019t desert it despite all kinds of hardships and these seats belonged to them. Our participation in the by-election will mean that the PTI is legitimising their act of disqualifying party legislators,\u201d Imran was quoted as saying in a post published on his X account.<\/p>\n
Before the election campaign could pick up, local police officials, caught on video footage, were seen removing banners of PTI candidate Chaudhry Arslan, who is contesting as an independent candidate on the \u2018geyser\u2019 election symbol.<\/p>\n
The PTI leaders alleged the government had posted Lesco officials as presiding officers in the by-election.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an interesting coincidence that the PML-N candidate is Lesco chairman and the presiding officers have also been picked from the same company,\u201d Hammad wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n
He included four appointment orders of the polling staff in his post, showing that all four presiding officers were selected from Lesco.<\/p>\n
Lesco CEO Ramzan Butt, however, rebutted Hammad\u2019s post, stating that the appointment of some company officers as presiding officers for the by-election was the decision of the ECP and not Lesco or any other government organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not appointed our officers as presiding officers (POs) for performing election duty, but the ECP,\u201c the Lesco CEO told Dawn. \u201cIn previous elections, too, Lesco officers performed duties as POs. It is a routine matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to another senior Lesco officer, the company\u2019s current chairman of the board was not the PML-N candidate, as he served as BoD head two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe post of BoD chairman is honorary and the person who serves in this slot is not required to contest elections two to three years after leaving the job. So it\u2019s ridiculous to say that Nauman is the current chairman of the Lesco BoD, as he left the position two years before,\u201d the official maintained.<\/p>\n
Hammad also alleged that the incumbent government was taking different administrative measures \u201cdue to public fear in NA-129\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his X post, Hammad alleged some POs were summoned to the Chief Minister\u2019s House and issued threats, while the government was also employing other tactics to keep voters away, frustrated and afraid.<\/p>\n
The PTI leader further claimed that the government relocated 51 polling stations several kilometres away from populated areas, transferred votes from one area to polling stations in another, removed PTI publicity material and arrested workers under police supervision, issued threats to local leaders over the phone, and prohibited Arslan from running his election campaign<\/p>\n
The PTI leader further accused the authorities of moving the returning officer\u2019s office even farther from the constituency and \u201cpresenting an administration tout as a fake PTI candidate\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The PTI slammed the PML-N government on Thursday for allegedly employing rigging tactics in support of its candidate in Lahore\u2019s NA-129 by-election. The by-election is scheduled for Sunday. The party claimed that campaigning began with state personnel tearing down the PTI candidate\u2019s banners and posters, managing polling stations and then appointing subordinates of the PML-N […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13549,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13547\/revisions\/13549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}