Bilawal demands re-polling in AJK's Mirpur, resurrects 'Form-47' accusation

PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari continued his tirade against the PML-N — an ally of his party in the Centre — on Wednesday, reiterating his allegations in the first phase of Azad Jammu and Kashmir elections and demanding re-polling.

Addressing a PPP workers’ convention in Muzaffarabad, he called on the Election Commission to hold re-polling in Mirpur if “you are not involved in this rigging”.

Directly taking a jibe at Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, he said: “If someone is sitting on the PM’s seat, or someone is sitting on the CM’s position today, even a child knows that it is not because of the people’s votes or your performance but because of Form-47.”

Form-47 is the provisional consolidated statement of results of vote count of all polling stations in a constituency, prepared by the returning officer (RO) concerned. It has been used mainly by the opposition PTI since the 2024 general elections in the country to refer to alleged rigging in the polls.

Bilawal’s allegations on Wednesday were in continuation of his party’s accusations from the day before, when the PPP and the PML-N traded barbs over election results, with Maryam saying in a televised address that it was “not the state that decides election results, but the people”. She also urged the PPP to accept defeat.

Shortly before Bilawal’s speech on Wednesday, she, too, took a jibe at the PPP on X, saying: “The PPP, which is the master of the fine art of rigging, is crying foul. When’s the doomsday?”

Elections in AJK are being held in three phases over security concerns, and the PML-N won nine out of a total 13 seats up for grabs in the first phase in Mirpur, according to provisional results.

‘Commission’s role exposed’

Addressing a press conference in Lahore on Wednesday, PPP Central Punjab General Secretary Hassan Murtaza claimed that the rigging had “exposed the commission’s role and the robbery of the PPP’s mandate in broad daylight”.

He alleged that “such rigging had never been seen before in Pakistan”.

“In Charhoi, from where Chaudhry Yasin was contesting, 30 polling stations were held hostage, and when the polling time ended, polling agents were not allowed to sit together,” he claimed. Murtaza added that in Javed Badhanvi’s constituency, similar tactics were employed.

“And on the day of polling, our worker Mukhtar Younis was martyred,” he said.

He added that polling stations in Chaudhry Ikhlaq’s constituency were also taken hostage, and so were those in Chaudhry Pervaiz Ashraf’s constituency, where Murtaza claimed he was in “close competition”.

Murtaza alleged that holding the elections in phases was done to “enable rigging”. Speaking about the role of the AJK Election Commission, the PPP leader likened its role to that of Punjab’s Crime Control Department.

“It was deciding who is to be half-fried and full fried, whose polling agents to pick and what polling stations to seize,” he said, adding that “extending the voting time by one hour was done so they could get time to stamp votes for the PML-N”.

“The AJK Election Commission played the role of a commissioned agent,” he remarked. He said that PPP leaders brought the issue to the commission’s attention and had urged it not to facilitate rigging.

“We kept telling you that buses were being given away and the code of conduct was being violated and you only took notice when the whole of social media assailed you for it,” he said.

He recalled that a day earlier, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz made a statement over “how the PPP had nothing to show for itself”.

At this, he said: “The past is witness that it was the PPP who got AJK the right to engage in parliamentary politics.”

He added that during the PPP’s six months in power in AJK, the region’s then-premier Faisal Mumtaz Rathore had accepted 35 of the demands of the proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) “with one executive order”.

However, he noted that there were two demands where the “federal government was involved or it required constitutional amendments”.

He said that PPP leaders Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Qamar Zaman Qaira were part of the negotiating team that “begged the protesters for two weeks so all stakeholders may be brought on board, but the group did not accept the request”.

However, he held that JAAC’s refusal did not mean that the state should end the negotiating process altogether and the PPP’s proposal for a truth and reconciliation commission be dismissed.

“If the state had shown some flexibility, the issue could have been resolved,” he added.

The PPP has repeatedly called for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission amid protests in AJK.

Over the past month, the regional administration and the JAAC have been at odds over various issues — most notably the committee’s demand to abolish the 12 seats in the region’s Legislative Assembly reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947, which has resulted in protests across the region.

On Tuesday, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari demanded that the government and the protesters agree to establish the commission while addressing a gathering in Muzaffarabad.

“All the state had to do was form a truth and reconciliation commission and task it with discerning the truth, and the protesters would have been asked to halt their protests until the commission presented its findings,” Bilawal said on Tuesday, but added that neither party had been willing to “back down”.

Ashraf calls for probe

Separately, PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf addressed a press conference in Islamabad, where he presented what he described as evidence for the alleged rigging.

“The other day, I demanded that the chief election commissioner should immediately decide on the constituencies where we have raised objections,” he said, calling for an investigation “based on fact and evidence”.

He asked if the party did not have the right to approach the relevant forum over the matter, stressing that “only the people of Pakistan and Kashmir can be judges of the issue”.

He also objected to statements by the PML-N leadership advising PPP to “move on”, raising alarm that PPP’s “legitimate grievances” were not being taken into account. The PPP leader then went on to show “video evidence” of the alleged rigging.

“In this video in LA-12, a person can be seen picking up ballot papers and setting them on fire, along with 100-150 people who were led by the PML-N candidate,” the leader claimed.

At this, Ashraf said he had brought the incident to the AJK Chief Justice Raja Saeed Akram Khan’s attention and asked: “It has been more than 48 hours since we brought this to your notice, but has there been any action taken against this person?”

He continued: “How are you telling us to be brave and move on as the elections are when there are still two phases left?”

He warned of serious repercussions given the lack of accountability for such conduct. The PPP leader then went on to highlight discrepancies in the results from some of the polling stations in the Mirpur division.

“In polling station no.15 in LA-12, the total registered votes were 785, and the PML-N candidates secured 639 votes while our candidate got 12 votes and yet the results show that total votes were cast.”

He pointed out that the polling station was in Charhoi, where he claimed at least 25pc of the people lived abroad and went on to question how every registered voter could have shown up.

He noted that some of the polling stations had voter turnout of up to 99pc. At this, he remarked: “This can only happen when you are sitting down and stamping the ballot papers yourself”.

“This is the story of the injustice I wanted to tell you,” he said, urging PML-N leadership to go to AJK and speak to the people.

He warned: “If we sweep everything under the rug, then people are going to lose their faith in the election process.”

Ashraf called on the AJK chief justice to pay attention to the issue, questioning how the total turnout could have jumped to such a significant extent in AJK.

“You have ensured the PPP was defeated, and you have done a lot of planning [..], but when you pull such a move, there is always a trace,” he said. He called on the AJK Chief Election Commissioner, Retired Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mughal, to make a decision.

“This is the third day, and you should have stopped the process when our complaints started coming in,” he said. ...