LAHORE: The Returning Officer of NA-122 rejected on Tuesday applications of two candidates who sought recount of votes cast in the Oct 11 by-election.

Rejecting the applications of Abdul Aleem Khan of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and independent candidate Khurram Qureshi, RO Zahid Iqbal said he had invited all contestants and their representatives before announcing the final results, but no-one turned up.

Mr Iqbal said that after the announcement of results he had no authority to order the recount. He said that at this stage only election commission could take up such applications.

Also read: Five reasons why PTI lost NA-122 (and why it might fail again)

Aleem Khan has alleged in his application that the votes rejected in the constituency were credited to Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, the PML candidate declared to have won the seat.

Khurram Qureshi, the independent candidate, said he had been allotted the symbol of `goat’ and claimed that the votes cast in his favour had been counted as cast for`tiger’, the election symbol of PML-N.

He asked the RO to order a recount to prove his charges.

Advocate Ishtiaq Chaudhry, the candidate of Pakistan Awami Tehreek also filed an application before the Election Tribunal seeking recount of votes cast in NA-122.

The application was filed under Section 52 of the Peoples’ Representatives Act 1976 and alleged that Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had neither deposited the Rs2.5 million fine imposed on him by the tribunal nor had he submitted details of his foreign visits at the time of filing his nomination papers before the Returning Officer.

The petitioner alleged serious irregularities in the by-election and accused the PML-N government of using state machinery to support its candidate.

Published in Dawn, October 14th , 2015

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