PML-N becomes expert in manipulating election results: Shibli

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz said on Thursday that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had become an expert in the art of manipulating the election results during the past many decades.

The history was witness that the PML- N had always won elections on the basis of bullying, rigging and electoral fraud, he said talking to the media here outside the Election Commission of Pakistan along with PTI leader Usman Dar and and NA-75 candidate Ali Asjad Malhi.

He said PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz had rightly said yesterday that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) did not know the art of rigging the elections. Whatever the tales of rigging were narrated by the PML-N's legal counsel before the ECP were in fact related to their own actions.

The PTI candidates could not be intimidated by threats and firing as the party was committed to reform the system, he added.

The minister said the PML-N failed to provide any concrete proofs and evidences of rigging in NA-75 Daska bye-elections.

He said the PML-N leaders considers victory in every election their birth right, and if otherwise, they started crying foul.

He reminded the media that it was the PTI which had raised its voice against rigging in the 2013 general election.

He said from the Chhanga Manga politics to the 2018 election, the Nawaz League had the record of stealing the mandate of the people through dirty tricks.

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan had accepted the challenge of re-polling in 20 polling stations but now they had backtracked and started demanding re-election in the entire constituency. It was a trademark of all the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) parties to take U-turns and backtrack from their earlier decisions.

They had the habit of 'pick and choose' and they even cried hoarse over court decisions if the same were not in their favour, he added.

He said the prime minister believed in free, fair and transparent elections and reverence in the Supreme Court for open ballot in Senate polls was its manifestation.

The minister claimed that the opposition parties were planning to purchase votes in the Senate elections from the money plundered by them in the past. Their attitude was hypocritical and they wanted to damage the democratic system but they would not succeed in their designs.

Replying to media persons questions, he said the PML-N had said that they had objection on only 20 polling stations and now it wanted re-election in the entire constituency.

The PTI would accept the ECP's verdict in the case, he said, adding on the contrary the opposition parties had the tendency of challenging the decisions against them.

It was the manifestation of their hypocrisy that they were claiming that rigging was done in NA-75 but they were opposing an open ballot system in the Senate elections, he added.