LAHORE, Sept 19: The opposition again raised the issue of alleged rigging in the local polls when the house met after a two days break on Monday afternoon. The debate was opened by PPP’s Farzana Raja on a point of order who alleged that her party candidate for Jhelum district Nazim, Col Anwar Afridi (retired), was tortured when he went to submit his candidature to the returning officer.

She said ruling party nominee and Lahore High Court chief justice’s brother Javed Husain Chaudhry along with the DCO and the SP was already sitting in the RO’s office.

Two ASI’s dragged Mr Afridi before local pressmen and snatched and burnt his nomination papers while two other candidates, Muhammad Ashiq and Bashir Butt, were also not allowed to submit their nominations to get the Chaudhry elected unopposed, she alleged.

PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah Khan regretted that no one from the treasury was ready to respond to the allegations.

Accusing the government of using pressure tactics against its party’s nominees too, he claimed that the Faisalabad DPO office had become an election camp for government’s candidate Col Ghulam Rasool Sahi (retired), the brother of Punjab Assembly speaker Afzal Sahi.

The police officer, he alleged, was seeking “donations” from millowners for Mr Sahi’s election campaign.

He sought that the chair should fix time for a full debate on rigging in the three phases of local elections.

Law and parliamentary affairs minister Raja Muhammad Basharat said that the opposition wanted to raise a stale issue which had already been taken up in the house for two consecutive days (on Thursday and Friday).

He said he would only respond to relevant queries referred to him by the chair.

The chair, being held by Malik Nazar Farid Khokhar, ruled that no debate could be fixed on the basis of a point of order.

Another opposition MPA, Ashraf Khan, claimed that a police constable had at gunpoint forced defence minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal, former chief minister Mian Manzoor Wattoo and provincial minister Raza Gilani’s father to withdraw their nominees in favour of government’s candidate for Okara district nazim.

He said he was ready to resign as MPA if Mr Gilani or anyone else denied the charge. Mr Gilani said actually the policeman was mentally deranged.

MMA’s Arshad Baggu lamented that for the first time the judiciary had been used to rig elections.

Rana Sana demanded that either the treasury should respond to their allegation otherwise they would walked out of the house in protest.

All the opposition members walked out of the house as the chair earlier adjourned the house for Maghrib prayers and later for Tuesday afternoon without completing the business.