JUI-F alleges 'historic rigging' in Feb 8 polls

• Party rejects results of February 8 general elections.
• Attempt made to push JUI-F to the wall, politician says.
• "ECP was so helpless, set new traditions," Maulana Haideri.

ISLAMABAD: The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), while rejecting the results of the February 8 elections, has said rigging in polls has made history.

JUI-F Secretary General Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, in a statement on Saturday, said JUIF chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman would soon convene a meeting of the Central General Council to decide the future action plan, The News reported.

He said leaders of national mainstream parties were forcibly defeated while little-known candidates were helped to win their constituencies. Mobile phone service was shut down on the polling day to achieve the desired result.

Why the Election Commission of Pakistan was so helpless, he asked, adding that the commission set new traditions.

This, he said, also happened in the 2013 and 2018 general elections. He questioned why the ECP was bent upon giving the country an unelected government containing people who would act as showpieces.

Meanwhile, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has called a meeting of the central working committee and senior leaders in Islamabad on February 14.

The meeting will discuss the situation arising out February 8 elections, the party spokesman in a statement said.

He said that the JUI-F leadership while expressing reservations over poll results, felt that an attempt had been made to push them to the wall.

Originally published in The News