ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) challenged the recently held election of Senate chairman in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday.
The petition, filed by Farooq H. Naek on behalf of Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) candidate for chairman of the upper house, prays to the court to stop Sadiq Sanjrani from working as a new Senate chairman by declaring the election null and void since the PDM members have a majority in the house.
The petition further reads that the decision to reject the votes cast in favour of Gilani was unconstitutional.
“We were deprived of our Senate chairman seat unfairly. And that the notification, issued on March 12, declaring Sadiq Sanjrani as chairman was unconstitutional,” the petitioner adds.
Later, speaking to the media outside the IHC, PPP leader Nayyer Bukhari said the rejection of seven votes cast in favour of PDM candidate Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani proved to be a game-changer.
He was of the view that the presiding officer (PO) had wrongly rejected the votes. He further said that when PDM leaders asked for the ballot papers’ record, the request was not accepted. Bukhari said that the PPP had challenged the presiding officer’s decision under Article 199.
He pointed out that there was the same column for stamping on the candidate’s name. “Actually it is voter’s intention that needs to be looked into,” he argued.
On March 12, a controversy was witnessed during the Senate chairman elections, when the PTI-backed candidate Sadiq Sanjrani once again defied the odds to become Senate chairman yet again after a knife-edge poll.
It is pertinent here to mention that Sanjrani received 48 votes while his opponent and PDM joint candidate Yosuf Raza Gilani received 42 votes; however, there was a controversy in the vote-counting as seven of Gilani’s votes have been rejected as the voters failed to stamp in the box correctly.
Farooq H Naek, the representative of Gilani, challenged the decision, however, the presiding officer rejected his objection and said the grieved party can challenge his decision in the Election Tribunal.
The presiding officer said the rules were clearly mentioned to stamp the vote in front of the candidate’s box and the voters who stamped on the name of the candidate have been rejected.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Monday submitted fresh applications to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the PDM candidate for the seat of Senate chairman, Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani’s disqualification case.
A four-member bench of the ECP, headed by Member Punjab Altaf Ibrahim Qureshi, is hearing the PTI’s petitions, seeking Gilani’s disqualification on the basis of the video in which his son Ali Haider Gilani was seen telling two PTIA MNAs the way to waste votes.
PTI has named two of its MNAs, Faheem Khan and Jamil Ahmed, who were seen in the controversial video, as respondents in the case.
“In our view, Faheem Khan and Jamil Ahmed are both witnesses in the case,” said PTI’s Maleeka Bukhari, and added, “It was on ECP’s directives that the witnesses have been made the respondents.”
She further said if the election commission was of the view that any of the PTI MNAs has committed a wrongdoing, it should take action against it.
Irshad Qaiser, Member of the ECP from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), said on the occasion that directives of the election commission had not been implemented in letter and spirit.
When the ECP inquired from Maleeka Bukhari as to which PTI’s petition should be heard: the first one or the new one, Maleeka replied that it was incumbent upon the election commission to ensure transparency.
Later, talking to the media outside the ECP office, PTI leaders Maleeka Bukhari and Farrukh Habib said today the party had raised the issue of public interest in the election commission.
Maleeka said mockery of law and the constitution was made on March 3. She called upon the party workers and supporters to always stand by truth. “If you show perseverance, then none could defeat you,” she said, and added that if the ECP did not announce verdict in the case soon, then eyebrows would be raised.
She stated the nation had witnessed the sale and purchase of votes during elections just because those indulging in this practice are rich and affluent.
PTI leader regretted that despite the fact that Ali Haider Gilani, Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son, had confessed to have told PTI MNAs the way to waste votes ahead of Senate elections, the election commission did not take any action.
PTI counsel Barrister Ali Zafar, Parliamentary Leader for Railways Farrukh Habib and MNA Kanwal Shauzab appeared before the commission and recorded their arguments.
Ali Zafar claimed that rigging was done during the Senate polls through money and party tickets, and that its evidence came to light in the shape of a video just a day before the elections.
The ECP had, on March 10, rejected PTI’s petition, seeking non-issuance of the notification of victory of PDM candidate. However, the election commission agreed to take up PTI’s application for declaring Gilani disqualified for the Senate seat on March 22, and issued notices to Gilani and his son Ali Haider Gilani in this regard.
A day earlier, the ECP had issued summons for PPP Senator Yousaf Raza Gilani and his son Ali Haider Gilani on Monday in connection with the disqualification plea filed by PTI.
The ECP was pleaded to take action against Yousaf Raza Gilani and his son under Section 174 of the Election Act 2017 in light of the leaked video in which Ali Haider Gilani was seen telling the MNAs how to waste their votes.
The notice issued by the ECP Law Wing had directed the newly-elected senator to appear in person or through his lawyer for the hearing.
The notices had also been served on the petitioners namely Farrukh Habib, Kanwal Shauzab and Malika Bukhari, who had filed a plea seeking disqualification of Gilani over the leaked video.
In the leaked video, Ali, an MPA from Multan, was telling members of the National Assembly how to waste their votes in order to benefit his father Yousaf Raza Gilani in the Senate elections.
The junior Gillani had himself appeared before the media and admitted that he had tried to influence the Senate election.
Earlier on March 15, the ruling PTI had demanded the resignation of the ECP, while accusing the poll’s supervisor of “complete failure” in holding transparent Senate elections and hence losing the government’s trust.
