Islamabad: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) suffered an embarrassing setback as an election tribunal on Monday set aside a win in the 2013 general election by its nominee and ordered a repoll.

The election of PML-N’s Khwaja Saad Rafique, currently federal railways minister, from a National Assembly constituency in Lahore, had been challenged by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) rival Hamid Khan.

The much-awaited verdict, announced by the tribunal in Lahore nearly two years after the general election, effectively upheld the PTI candidate’s allegations of poll rigging in the NA-125 constituency in Punjab, the power base of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

PTI, which has been waging a campaign against what it called massive manipulation of the 2013 general election, rejoiced over the verdict.

The tribunal’s judgement comes at a time when a three-judge judicial commission headed by Pakistan’s Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk is probing allegations of fraud in 2013 national polls.

Khwaja Saad Rafique told reporters in Lahore that the PML-N would decide whether to challenge the tribunal’s verdict in the Supreme Court or go for by-election.

Rafique said the decision exposed the incompetence of returning officers and presiding officers.

“The judge ordered re-polling because he feels there were some irregularities,” he said, adding that “the judge has punished my party and me for the incompetence of the officers.”

The single-judge tribunal also ordered a repoll in Punjab Assembly constituency PP-155, from where PML-N’s Mian Naseer Ahmad had won in the 2013 general election.

Former Election Commission secretary Kanwar Dilshad said Rafique would have to resign as member of the National Assembly and consequently quit his cabinet post.

NA-125 was among the four constituencies where PTI had demanded voters’ thumbprint-verification.

Last year PTI chief Imran Khan led a record 126-day sit-in near the parliament in Islamabad, demanding judicial probe into alleged fraud in 2013 election.

“It is deplorable that a person who won the election through rigging has been a minister,” Imran Khan said, while speaking to media.

The PTI chief demanded that the concerned election officials who had conducted the polls in the Lahore constituency should be summoned and questioned by the judicial commission.

Asserting that 2015 is going to be election year, Khan hoped that the ongoing judicial commission probe would pave the way for this,