Maryam alleges govt failed in rigging NA-75 by-polls
PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz said on Sunday that the incumbent government had been fully exposed after its alleged "plan of rigging" the NA-75 (Daska) by-polls was unsuccessful.
Maryam was speaking to the media in Jati Umra in Lahore before setting out to visit Daska to show her gratitude to the people for "how they gave respect to the vote [...] and gave patrol [for security of the vote] to the last moment"."The plan of rigging they made using the administration and the police," she said, had "failed badly" despite its implementation and the use of the "worst state terrorism" to enforce it.
"This is a glaring thing that they used every tactic [available] and are now out in the open and stand exposed [...] they should now know their standing in the eyes of the people." The NA-75 by-polls were marred by violence on Friday, with clashes between voters and police in multiple places, including polling stations and a police station at several times during the day. PML-N leaders and supporters accused authorities of preventing voters from casting their ballots. At least two people were killed and three others injured in a firing incident at a polling station. One of the victims was reportedly a member of the ruling PTI while the other belonged to the PML-N.
The Election Commission of Pakistan said that it suspected results of 20 polling stations had been falsified in the by-election for the NA-75 constituency as the PML-N alleged massive rigging. The commission said results of the NA-75 constituency were received with "unnecessary delay", adding that it tried to contact the presiding officers several times but with no success. "They took lives and abducted ECP staff; 20 presiding officers were made missing persons," said Maryam as she blasted the government for the incidents that happened during the bypolls. She questioned why out of the 361 polling stations, the staff of only 20 polling stations had to go missing during the "fog" and why were the results of these polling stations suddenly changed when the officers returned after 12 hours.
"What bigger evidence is there than this?" She claimed she was also in possession of footage where a presiding officer can be seen acknowledging that unidentified men had arrived in a car and tried to pressure him to return with them with the ballot box instead of in the official ECP vehicle, which he had refused.
"These evidences are coming out and they [government] has now fully come out into the open." Maryam had raised concerns over the alleged rigging and incidents of violence in a press conference on Saturday where she said the ECP's statement on the by-polls was a "charge sheet" against the government.
"There was firing, polling was slowed, people were killed and bags of votes were stolen. The ECP was looking for you, where was the Punjab government?" She questioned "where was the chief minister, the chief secretary, the police, the inspector general and the administration" during the violence that broke out and why they were missing in action.
She had called for cases to be registered against Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and Prime Minister Imran Khan for allegedly "trying to steal votes and martyring two individuals".
She had claimed that ECP officials were made to "vanish". "No one knows where these officials went for 14 hours or where they were kept. "Does someone's phone stop working during foggy weather? That as a group [they] suddenly all vanish [...] the election commission was helpless trying to find them and no one is listening to it."