By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Thursday accused the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government of systematically rigging the coming by-election in the National Assembly constituency NA-129, alleging a pattern of administrative interference that includes the removal of campaign materials, the appointment of polling officials linked to the PML-N candidate and the relocation of dozens of polling stations to remote areas.
The by-election, set for Sunday, will fill the seat left vacant by the death of Mian Muhammad Azhar, a veteran politician. His nephew, Chaudhry Arslan, is running with the backing of Azhar’s son, Hammad Azhar, a former PTI minister who is currently in hiding to avoid arrest in multiple cases.
Arslan is contesting as an independent on the “geyser” symbol after the PTI’s election symbol was stripped by the authorities. The PTI, founded by the imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan, is boycotting by-elections in six other constituencies across Punjab but has chosen to contest NA-129, the only seat it is fighting in the current round of polling. The other seats fell vacant after PTI-backed lawmakers were disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan for defecting during a crucial vote.
Khan, writing from jail through a post on his X account, had earlier directed the party not to participate in those by-elections, arguing that doing so would legitimise the disqualifications. “The disqualified MPAs had believed in the PTI and didn’t desert it despite all kinds of hardships and these seats belonged to them,” he wrote. “Our participation in the by-election will mean that the PTI is legitimising their act of disqualifying party legislators.”
In NA-129, however, the party has thrown its weight behind Arslan. Within days of the campaign’s start, PTI leaders say, state functionaries began tearing down the candidate’s banners and posters. Video footage circulated on social media showed uniformed police officers removing the material. The most serious allegation centers on the appointment of presiding officers for the by-election.
Hammad Azhar posted copies of four appointment orders showing that the presiding officers in several polling stations are employees of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco). The PML-N candidate, Muhammad Nauman, served as chairman of Lesco’s board of directors until two years ago. “It is an interesting coincidence that the PML-N candidate is Lesco chairman and the presiding officers have also been picked from the same company,” Azhar wrote on X.
Lesco’s chief executive, Ramzan Butt, rejected any suggestion of impropriety. “We have not appointed our officers as presiding officers (POs) for performing election duty, but the ECP,” Butt said. “In previous elections, too, Lesco officers performed duties as POs. It is a routine matter.”
A senior Lesco official, speaking on condition of anonymity, went further, saying Nauman had left the honorary chairmanship two years earlier and was free to contest elections. “It’s ridiculous to say that Nauman is the current chairman of the Lesco BoD,” the official said.
PTI leaders also accused the authorities of moving 51 polling stations far from populated neighbourhoods, transferring voters to distant stations, issuing telephone threats to local party organisers, arresting campaign workers and barring Arslan from holding corner meetings. They further claimed the returning officer’s office had been shifted to a more remote location and that a dissident PTI figure, Bajash Khan Niazi, recently expelled from the party for indiscipline, had been fielded as a spoiler candidate to confuse voters.
The party issued a formal “public alert” on its letterhead, warning voters that Niazi was campaigning against Arslan and in favour of the PML-N nominee. Moeen Riaz Qureshi, the opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly, described the situation as a “police state” created by what he called the “Form-47 Punjab government,” a reference to the controversial result forms used in last year’s general election. “Our workers, after facing this government’s fascism, are standing tall and strong,” Qureshi wrote on X, urging voters to turn out in large numbers for Arslan in memory of the late Mian Muhammad Azhar.
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