Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday said that PPP will challenge the result of PS-11 Larkana by-poll, where the party suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA).

In a series of tweets, the PPP chairman said, “We will challenge this rigging at every forum. The truth can’t be hidden. We will expose this selection. We will have a re-election and take back this seat.”

As per preliminary results from 138 polling stations that were set up for the by-election, Abbasi bagged 31,557 votes, while his rival Jamil Soomro of the PPP obtained 26,021 votes.

Following the voting process yesterday, Bilawal had said in a post shared on Twitter that: “We will challenge this rigging at every forum. The truth can’t be hidden. We will expose this selection. We will have a re-election and take back this seat.”

In a series of posts shared on Twitter, the PPP leader said he was proud of PPP workers for “fighting an honorable election,” which he claimed they did “despite immense pressure from the establishment. From pre-poll with NAB arresting & sending notices to PPP workers & their families”.

“Since morning media was reporting women voters they were threatened them to vote for GDA. Despite our pleas, ECP did not take notice,” Bilawal said. He claimed that the Rangers took over inside of the polling stations and PPP’s women voters were harassed and their polling agents were thrown out.

This election was very hard for the party because of the “immense pressure from the establishment”. He said that there was pre-polling rigging from the start with NAB arresting PPP leaders and sending notices to the workers and their families.

Abbasi had won the sear in the 2018 General Election after defeating PPP’s Nida Khuhro, the daughter of Nisar Ahmed Khuhro. She submitted her nomination papers after her father was disqualified from contesting elections.

The GDA’s candidate had secured 32,206 votes, while Nida secured 21,825 votes. She later challenged his victory and he was later de-seated on orders of a court.