Withdrawing all his allegations related to rigging in the elections, former Rawalpindi commissioner Liaqat Ali Chatha said he was “extremely ashamed, embarrassed”, and claimed that he made the move in coordination with a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader.
“I take full responsibility for my actions and surrender myself before the authorities for any kind of legal action,” Chatha said in a statement to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
In a dramatic development last Saturday, Chatha had tendered his resignation, which he said was out of “guilty conscience” for abetting large-scale electoral rigging in the garrison city, further raising the political mercury in the country.
The commissioner, in the rare press conference, took responsibility for the “rigging” that he claimed took place in Rawalpindi Division. “We converted the losers into winners with 50,000 votes margin,” he stated.
In response to his allegations, the PTI, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), and other political parties — most of whom had already rejected the election results — demanded an investigation into the matter.
