PESHAWAR/LANDI KOTAL, June 6: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has rejected the results of re-polling for NA-46 Bara, a National Assembly seat in Khyber Agency, and asked the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to verify the thumb prints of voters and recount the votes.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, PTI candidate Haji Mohammad Iqbal Afridi alleged that the election was totally engineered and nobody could call it free, fair and transparent.

“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shaukatullah Khan and local administration played main role in success of the independent candidate Nasir Khan from the constituency by polling fake votes,” he alleged.

Mr Afridi said that results were changed during the first round of election on May 11 because a large number of voters were not registered in the electoral lists for re-polling on June 5.

Owing to change in the original electoral rolls, he said, only 600 votes were polled out of total 28,000 registered votes at a polling station set up for displaced tribal people in Peshawar. Similarly, at Samghakhi polling station and other areas in Khyber Agency, a large number of voters were deprived of their right to vote, he added.

Mr Afridi said that the turnout remained very low at both male and female polling stations. He alleged that fake ballots were polled with the support of local administration and polling staff.

The PTI candidate said that he made several requests to ECP to carry out verification of thumb prints of voters and re-count the polled votes but he didn’t get any response.

Mr Afridi threatened that people would take to streets if ECP did not accept his request about verification of thumb prints and recounting of votes.

Meanwhile, former MNA and an independent candidate from NA-46 Hamidullah Jan Afridi has also rejected the poll results and appealed to chief justice to take notice of what he calls broad day buying of votes in Jamrud.

Addressing a press conference, he accused the district returning officer and presiding officers of manipulating the final counting of votes in favour of his opponent and winning candidate Nasir Khan.

Returning Officer Mohammad Nasir on Thursday officially declared Nasir Khan a winner with total votes of 4,134 after counting of postal ballots at his office at Khyber House.

However, Hamidullah Jan said that he would challenge the election of Nasir Khan as he, according to him, was a convict in a criminal case and a convicted person could not contest elections.

Criticising the role of Khyber political administration and ECP, he said that both the institutions acted partially against him and did not even register an FIR against those, who were caught vandalising polling stations, harassing voters and snatching ballot boxes on May 11 at Levies centre in Shahkas.

Meanwhile, the returning officer for NA-46, Mohammad Nasir acknowledged that his administration arrested two persons in Jamrud on Wednesday after complaints by some candidates about their involvement in purchasing votes in the vicinity of a polling station.

He, however, denied that the accused were arrested in the limits of any polling station.