LAHORE: Nadra has found discrepancies in the election record of NA-118, Lahore, says a report submitted to an election tribunal hearing a petition that demands verification of votes polled in the national assembly constituency.

PTI's Hamid Zaman, who stood runner-up, filed the petition alleging PML-N's Riaz Malik committed rigging in the general polls. The tribunal had ordered Nadra to verify ballots with thumb impressions of the voters.

The report says the authority was provided the record of 68 polling stations by the Election Commission. It says only 15,835 out of total 46,118 polled votes at these polling stations were found correct in terms of thumb impressions of the voters. Nadra found counterfoils of 4,043 votes with invalid CNIC numbers and 142 votes were cast by unregistered voters. It says thumb impressions of voters were not found on 272 counterfoils.

During Monday's hearing, the defence counsel asked the tribunal to seal the report submitted by Nadra avoiding its reporting by the media. The tribunal handed over a copy of the report to petitioner's counsel accepting his argument that the report was not a classified document. The tribunal adjourned hearing till June 16.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2014