Advocate Salman Akram Raja, who contested the Feb 8 polls with the support of the PTI, said that he feels “sorry that the people’s mandate has been changed”.

Speaking to the media in Islamabad, he alleged that rigging took place in the returning officer’s (RO) office where the police was complicit in changing the results.

“Rigging can only end when the state decides that rigging has to end. What we can see is that state people were involved in rigging,” he said.

“The people should decide and their vote should be respected,” he said. He expressed dismay at the fact that those who used to talk about respecting the vote had abandoned the slogan.