Minister accused of pre-poll rigging

MARDAN: Several candidates for the district and tehsil councils on Thursday accused the Minister for Education Mohammad Atif Khan of announcing funds for mosques and community centres in his constituency in a bid to rig the election.
Speaking at a press conference, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) leaders Mushtaq Seemab and Syed Kaleem Bacha, Awami National Party (ANP) leader Naeem Anwar and Mohammad Ayub Khan of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) alleged that the minister announced funds for mosques and community centres in his constituency.
They accused the minister of distributing electricity transformers and appointing class-IV employees in different departments for getting sympathies of the voters.They claimed that the minister was employing these tactics on the directives of party leadership.
They asked the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan to take notice of his party leaders involvement in pre-poll rigging if he was interested in eliminating the menace of rigging from the country.
The candidates claimed that Atif Khan had not launched development projects since general elections but started visiting his constituency regularly ahead of the local government elections.
They asked the election commissioner and chief justice of Peshawar High Court to take notice of the situation and bar the provincial minister from visiting his constituency till the local government polls. The candidates announced to stage protest rally on May 10 in Mardan.