An election tribunal on Saturday declared void the election of Ayaz Sadiq, current Speaker of the Pakistani National Assembly, from a constituency in Lahore in the 2013 general election.
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Justice (Retd) Kazim Ali Malik ordered re-polling in NA-122 at the earliest since Sadiq’s disqualification has rendered the seat vacant.
According to Election Tribunal people were involved in rigging in NA-122.
“Will challenge the Election Tribunal’s verdict in the Supreme Court”, Ayaz Sadiq announced after today’s verdict, adding, “we have a court for expressing our reservations”.
Speaking to the media outside the tribunal premises Ali Sadiq, the son of Ayaz Sadiq, said the tribunal’s decision did not state that rigging had taken place in the constituency.
Throughout the day, the temperature outside the tribunal remained high as PTI and PML-N workers chanted slogans in favor of their respective leaders. Imran Khan darna for more than 100 days paid off and judgment came in favor of PTI.
In its decision, the election tribunal said that if the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Sardar Ayaz Sadiq does not file an appeal against the tribunal’s ruling, the by-election in NA-122 will be carried out on October 22.
The verdict was to be announced at 10:00 am but got delayed to 07:00 pm. When proceedings for the case began in July 2013, Ayaz Sadiq obtained a stay order. The authority submitted a supplementary report on May 30.
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NA-122 was among the four controversial constituencies – the other three being NA-110 (Sialkot), NA-125 (Lahore) and NA-154 (Lodhran) – where PTI had demanded for voters’ thumbprint verification in the hopes of finding a solution that might be acceptable to all concerned.
