NA-122 rigging case adjourned

LAHORE: Election Tribunal Judge Kazim Ali Malik on Saturday adjourned the hearing of a petition filed by PTI Chairman Imran Khan against alleged rigging in NA-122. The tribunal adjourned the hearing by July 6 as the counsel of Ayaz Sadiq did not turn up on Saturday to complete his arguments. An associate of Ayaz’s counsel appeared on behalf of his senior, Asjad Saeed, and informed the tribunal that his senior had other engagements and implored the tribunal for adjournment of the hearing, which was granted by July 6.
Previously, the counsel of Ayaz Sadiq had argued that Imran Khan claimed that his polling agent Shoaib Siddiqui told him about alleged rigging committed on the day of polling. But the PTI chief did not produce Siddiqui before the tribunal as a witness. He said his client had not stolen the mandate of the public and was elected purely on merit.
As per a supplementary report, Nadra examined samples of counterfoils having invalid identity card numbers and observed that a large number of them were minor mistakes in writing down the number of CNICs and the trivial mistakes had rendered an otherwise valid CNIC numbers into an invalid one.
On May 9, Nadra had submitted its full audit report of NA-122 before the tribunal revealing that only 73,478 out of total 184,151 cast votes in NA-122 could be verified. Previously, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA Chairman Usman Yusuf had informed the Election Tribunal that 99 percent votes polled in NA-122 were valid after which the tribunal had reserved its verdict over the supplementary forensic report submitted by the Nadra.