RAWALPINDI, Oct 24: The Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench on Friday took up three election petitions but deferred the hearings after the lawyers of both the sides did not turn up.

Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha put off the hearing of petitions filed by former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and two other contestants of the February 18 election till November 21.

On the last hearing, the court had readmitted the petition of Pervaiz Elahi after dismissing it due to non-prosecution.

In the petition, the PML-Q leader has maintained that he contested the general election from NA-61 (Chakwal-II) and obtained 91,769 votes but the returning officer declared Sardar Faiz Tamman as the winner with 92,201 votes.

He maintained that many votes cast in his favour were rejected, claiming most of the 11,396 rejected votes were valid. He alleged that the polling agents of the respondent harassed his voters and stopped them from casting votes at many polling stations in the rural Chakwal. He prayed to the court that all the rejected votes should be recounted and the result notified by the election commission be set aside.

Similarly, Ishtiaq Mirza of the Pakistan People’s Party has challenged the results of provincial assembly seat PP-13 (Rawalpindi XIII). The seat was won by Malik Yasir Raza of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 23,415 votes, whereas Mirza obtained 20,486 votes.

He also claimed that many of the votes cast in his favour were rejected by the returning officer. In the third petition, Raja Anwar of PML-N has challenged the victory of Raja Qamaral Islam of PML-Q from PP-5, Rawalpindi V.