Karachi LG elections: CJP urged to take suo motu notice of ‘post-poll rigging’

KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan Ameer Sirajul Haq has pleaded to Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Atta Bandiyal to take suo motu notice of post-poll rigging in the local government elections recently held in Karachi as the Election Commission of Pakistan played an unconstitutional role and facilitated the ruling Pakistan People Party in rigging the elections.

According to a statement, issued by the JI Karachi here on Sunday, the JI’s central leader has written a letter to the CJP, asking him to play his constitutional role as the blatant rigging of elections and the role played by the ECP to facilitate the ruling PPP, which will deprive the masses of trust in the electoral process. He mentioned that the aftermath of what happened in the Karachi local government polls will further fan the unrest among the society.

The JI leader shed light in detail on the misconduct by the ECP and the unconstitutional steps taken by the PPP government in Sindh. He further mentioned that the PPP has a history of delaying the local government elections as the polls due in 2009 were held in 2015 and the polls due in 2020 were held in 2023.

The JI leader mentioned that the government deployed a large number of biased returning officers, district returning officers and kept presiding officers under pressure. He maintained that initially the ECP took up the issue of six union councils where the results declared to the candidates on form 11 and 12 and those pronounced later were different. He added that the JI had won all these UCs with massive margin but instead of examining the validity of form 11 and 12, the ECP opt for recounting under the supervision of the same controversial ROs and DROs. Haq said that recounting under the supervision of biased ROs and DROs was itself tantamount to post-poll rigging as it was already occurred.

He highlighted that in some UCs, the ECP had ordered recounting where the results were changed as the ROs and DROs conducted recounting despite the fact that seals of bags were broken and in some cases the ballot bags were already torn. In this scenario, he asked the CJP to intervene in order to uphold the constitution.