LAHORE: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) told an election tribunal on Monday that 40,155 votes cast in PP-147 could not be verified during forensic inspection of ballots of the Punjab Assembly’s constituency.

Mohsin Latif, a close relative of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was elected to the assembly from the constituency. Runner-up candidate of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Shoaib Siddiqui had challenged Mr Latif’s victory alleging the election was rigged by the PML-N.

Allowing an application filed by Mr Siddiqui, the tribunal had directed Nadra to hold a forensic inspection of the ballots in PP-147, one of the two provincial assembly constituencies in NA-122, from where the National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had won.

In its 400-page report submitted on Monday, Nadra revealed that 40,155 votes remained unverified due to poor quality of fingerprints.

It said out of total 74,251 cast votes, fingerprints on only 24,139 matched with the record of the authority.

It further said 134 people who cast their votes were not registered voters of PP-147, while CNIC numbers mentioned on 3,683 counterfoils were found incorrect. Moreover, CNIC numbers of the voters were not mentioned on 138 counterfoils. Thumb impressions of voters were not found on 474 counterfoils, the report said.

The tribunal made the report part of the record and asked the Nadra director general of to record his statement on Tuesday (today).

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2015

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