Political rivals differ on ET verdict interpretations

Islamabad
The three-member judicial commission’s proceedings wherein a new aspect of the conduct of 2013 polls surfaces every day has caused shrills in ranks and file of the rival PML-N and PTI leadership as everyone of them is trying to interpret details of the verdict against the rival and in its favour.
The election tribunals have made technical issues the basis of unseating incumbent MNA Saad Rafique and re-counting on NA-122 Lahore has been ordered.
The PML-N leaders are arguing that since the ET judge has exonerated the party candidate of rigging charges his unseating was unjustified, whereas the PTI stalwarts are crying foul and whatever administrative irregularities have been pointed out in the judgement, they interpret them as rigging.
In this charged atmosphere will the rival parties not make the final verdict of the judicial commission controversial by interpreting its findings according to their interest and taste as they are doing with the election tribunal’s verdict? This question is in circulation these days as inquiry into NA-122 constituency of Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq is in its final stages. Imran Khan, who is a regular attendant of JC’s proceedings, has already said the outcome of the JC inquiry will prove how much Nadra and ECP were independent in their decisions. This clearly means that if the Nadra reports are interpreted to favour the PML-N candidates, the PTI chairman will refuse to accept them. He has already made his intentions of resuming container protest clear. On the other hand, the PML-N’s Anusha Rehman has accused Imran Khan of giving his own verdicts in his post JC proceedings media talks.
A former secretary Election Commission Kunwar Dilshad says in his view and in the light of the Supreme Court’s past verdicts the irregularities pointed out by the ET judge come under the definition of planned rigging and it was for the Supreme Court which is about to start hearing Khawaja Saad Rafique’s petition to probe the elements responsible for the rigging. Interestingly, the country’s top intelligence agencies, ISI and MI, have a role to play according to the terms of the JC but the commission apparently has not felt a need to involve them.
Talking to The News, Kunwar Dilshad pointed out that the ET’s verdict also points out lack of forms 14 with the polled ballot bags without which form 16 could not be prepared and the JC will definitely ask the relevant returning officers about this anomaly on basis of which Saad Rafique’s election was nullified.
A series of news conferences, media talks and talks shows on various private television channels has created an atmosphere of pitched battle between those who are bent upon to prove last general elections systematically rigged while the winners were disparately trying to falsify this opinion taking the plea that the judge has wrote “No rigging was proved against the candidate”.