Fiji Labour Party candidate, Dr Rohit Kishore, who has been the sole voice questioning the party leadership said his polling agents did not notice any irregularities during polling last Wednesday.

Dr Kishore said remarks by political parties which included his leader, Mahendra Chaudhry, on alleged irregularities was a mere smokescreen.

He said it was used to deviate from the resounding victory of FijiFirst.

Dr Kishore said after voting closed on Wednesday his polling agents were at Naria, Nabila and other polling stations and were in regular contact with him.

He said it was a fact that people did not vote for the Fiji Labour Party and the party’s leadership needed to answer for this.

He said what hurt their chances most was the announcement during campaign meetings of Labour’s post-election coalition with the Social Democratic Liberal Party.

Staunch Labour supporters felt betrayed by this, he said.

Supporters felt that the coalition was seen as FLP supporting the qoliqoli bill.

Dr Kishore said people had been calling him and questioned their stance on the controversial bill.

There were even calls from within the party for Mr Chaudhry to issue a statement clarifying that they were not forming any coalition. None was made, Dr Kishore said.

On the issue of Rajendra Chaudhry, Mr Chaudhry’s son, who has self-exiled to Australia, Dr Kishore said the leader turned a blind eye to his highly critical comments.

Another Labour candidate, Anwar Khan, had great difficulty in campaigning for the party, Dr Kishore said.

“This is because he had been questioned by party supporters about anti-Muslim comments posted up Rajendra Chaudhry on his Facebook page.”

Other candidates who did not want to be named said Mr Chaudhry should have stepped in and declared the party’s interest against Chaudhry junior’s interest in a press statement.

Dr Kishore said this did not happen.

Repeated attempts made to seek comments from Mr Chaudhry remained unanswered when this publication went to press.

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