PMLN leader alleges rigging in Oghi election

MANSEHRA: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Captain (r) Mohammad Safdar has said that his party’s aspirant in Oghi tehsil was defeated in the Local Government (LG) elections through poll rigging.

“The PML-N’s aspirant was winning the tehsil chairman’s election but the assistant commissioner changed results and our candidate lost to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s candidate,” he alleged while speaking at a presser in Oghi on Monday. Flanked by the Wajid Ali Shah who had lost the tehsil Oghi tehsil chairman election, Safdar said that his party secured the win in three of five tehsils in Mansehra district.

“The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should investigate how PML-N’s aspirant lost to the PIT candidate in Oghi,” he said.

Safdar, who is the son-in-law of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said that his party would also move the court of law against what he alleged was poll rigging carried out by the tehsil government to deprive his party of a tehsil chairmanship.

“We have also moved the ECP seeking the recounting of the votes,” he said. Safdar said that the Mansehra district was a stronghold of PML-N and his party would not accept the defeat at any cost.

Meanwhile, PTI’s tehsil chairman-elect Nawabzada Hassam told reporters that the people of his and Darband tehsils had rejected the PML-N in the LG elections.

“An independent and I won the second phase of the LG elections in Darband and Oghi tehsils, which fall in the constituency wherefrom Safdar had been elected as MNA and this is why he is not accepting this defeat and levelling allegations of poll rigging,” he said.