ISLAMABAD: Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has claimed that victory margin of National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has ‘increased’ after a vote recount in Lahore’s NA-122 constituency.

Making a counter-claim, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) said that ‘polling fraud has been exposed’ after the vote recount, and urged the National Assembly to ‘prepare resignation’ of the speaker.

“The cumulative lead of Ayaz Sadiq over Imran Khan has increased by 134 votes,” the minister said while talking to Dawn on Saturday.

Read: NA-122 poll record inspection ‘improves Sadiq’s margin’

Reacting to allegations levelled by PTI chief that some 30,000 bogus votes had been found in the polling bags during the scrutiny of votes, he advised Imran Khan to wait for the official verdict of the election tribunal which, according to him, was expected to come within a week.

Mr Rashid said bogus votes, if found, were not counted as per parameters agreed to by the representatives of candidates before the vote recount.

Also read: 30,000 bogus votes detected, says Imran

Mr Khan had repeatedly said that rigging would be exposed once the polling bags were opened, he said. “But nothing has come out after opening of the bags.” He claimed that the recount result had disappointed the PTI, which had been levelling allegations of rigging in general elections.

Meanwhile, PTI Information Secretary Dr Shireen Mazari in a statement asked the PML-N to “stop propaganda about the victory of Ayaz Sadiq in the vote recount” and urged him to resign from the office and the assembly.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2015

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