Nawaz Sharif secured NA-130 seat through historic ‘rigging’: PATTAN

ISLAMABAD: Lahore’s NA-130 constituency, where PML-N president Nawaz Sharif defeated PTI’s Yasmin Rashid in general elections 2024, is likely to have experienced the ‘worst form of rigging’ in the electoral history of Punjab, a civil society organisation PATTAN said on Wednesday.

“The National Assembly constituency NA-130 of Lahore is likely to have experienced the worst form of rigging ever happened in the electoral history of Punjab since 2002 general elections as on many Form-45s the turnout for NA130 was between 90 per cent and 102pc, while for provincial assembly seats about 40pc,” the PATTAN said in a report.

The organisation claimed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) seemingly increased Nawaz Sharif’s share in polled votes on Forms-45s which compelled the election officials to increase the overall turnout too for the same polling stations, and eventually that forced them to prepare the fake Form-47.

“However, this manipulation created phenomenal discrepancies on the election result forms not only within NA-130 but also with provincial seats, which exposed the scale of rigging,” the report stated.

Pattan’s audit revealed huge variance in shared polling stations (SPSs) established for NA-130 and PP -170, PP-173 and PP-174 – an extremely “peculiar and rare occurrence”.

For instance, on 82 Form-45s, on average the turnout for NA-130 was as high as 86pc, while in the same polling stations the average turnout for provincial seats was just 41pc – a staggering gap of 45pc must have caused discomfort.

“Similar gap could be seen in 36 other shared polling stations, where turnout was between 90pc and 99pc, but for provincial seats it was less than 40pc. On three Form-45s the turnout for NA was as high as 100pc or more, while for provincial assembly it was less than 50pc”, the report said.

It added overall, on 69 Form-45s of NA-130 the turnout was between 70pc and plus 100pc, Out of 69 on 60 polling stations turnout was between 80pc and 99pc – a rare phenomenon.

The turnout according to ECP Form-47 for NA-130 was 52.45%, while for PP-170; PP-173 and PP-174, it was just 40.15%, 40.69% and 38.24% respectively. “It means overall there were about 12% of voters who had cast ballot for NA but did not polled for PP seats at all, which looks suspicious,” it claimed.

Nawaz Sharif was shown winner on 166 or 44pc Form-45s, while Dr Yasmin Rashid was declared winner on 56pc or 208 forms. However, there appears a reverse relationship between share in polled votes and lead in polling stations.

In brief, the PATTAN said, three unprecedented and peculiar trends emerge from the audit of the ECP result forms:

Exceptionally high turnout on almost one-fifth Form-45s
Massive gap in turnout between national and provincial seats in the shared polling stations
Turnout gap between Form-47 and 45s.

“These contradictory and dubious trends would naturally create suspicion about the credibility of the elections, and seriously damage trust of public in electoral structures and democratic institutions,” it said.

The organisation called for a comprehensive investigation in a transparent manner as soon as possible as the country according to it can’t afford perpetuation of on-going political uncertainty.