Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party chief Imran Khan on Monday demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Sikander Sultan Raja, claiming that the top official tried his best to turn the election outcome in Punjab province in favour of the ruling PML-N party.
A day after securing a resounding victory in Punjab provincial by-polls, Khan thanked youngsters and women who came out in large numbers to vote for his party.
PTI clinched 15 provincial assembly seats out of the 20 up for grabs, dealing a stunning blow to the 13-party alliance led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on its home turf. According to unofficial and preliminary results, the ruling PML-N could only bag four seats.
"[During the by-polls] they used all the tactics to defeat us. Police threatened our people. Officers acted as workers of PML-N," he claimed, adding that Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz had no right to use the police in such a way.
He also claimed that there were four million deceased voters included in the electoral rolls. Khan claimed that the CEC Raja tried his best to turn the polls in favour of the PML-N headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
"I am disappointed in the chief election commissioner. How could he let all this happen? He is not competent to run [the Election Commission of Pakistan] and is biased towards a political party. Raja should immediately resign," the cricketer-turned-politician said.
He said that his party did not trust the CEC, citing the example of Senate elections in 2021 in which Khan said evidence of bribery was evident. .
He said that despite several cases of rigging during polls being brought before the CEC, he never punished anyone, which encouraged malpractice as no one feared accountability.
Despite all these tactics, Khan said: "We won as people came out to cast their votes like never before."
