PTI issues white paper on ‘rigging’ in Feb 8 polls

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has issued a white paper on alleged rigging in the February 8 general elections, demanding the formation of the judicial commission to probe the “snatching of the 180 seats”.

“We won the 180 seats in the [February 8] elections. Our seats were given to other parties through Form 47,” said PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar while addressing a press conference alongside other party leaders in Islamabad on Thursday. The PTI chief said they had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the alleged rigging. “But the plea has not been fixed for hearing as yet,” he lamented.

“We are issuing a 234-page white paper to bring it to the notice of the people as to how their mandate was stolen,” Barrister Gohar said. The PTI-backed independent candidates won the most National Assembly seats in the February 8 elections followed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

However, the PML-N with the support of the other parties including the PPP formed a coalition government in the Centre and later became the single largest party in the lower house of the parliament following the allocation of the reserved seats. The Imran Khan-founded party lost the right to the reserved seats as its members contested elections as independent candidates.

Referring to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to declare the party’s intra-party polls as invalid, the PTI chief, in today’s presser, said his party was forced to contest the general elections without its iconic ‘bat’ electoral symbol. “Our victory was turned into defeat by [manipulating] election results in the Form 47,” he claimed. The PTI chief said the white paper is based on the reports of international organisations, foreign media and newspapers.

He also called for carrying out the electoral reforms to eliminate rigging in the polls once and for all. Speaking on the occasion, PTI Secretary General Omar Ayub said the ECP was granted billions of rupees to hold free and fair elections in the country. “We demand the chief election commissioner to step down,” he said accusing the polls organising body of failing to hold transparent elections in the country.