KOHAT: The district returning officer on Friday ordered vote recount here in PK-81 on the application of runner-up candidate Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, who alleged anomalies in counting of votes.

In PK-80, an FIR has been registered against unidentified persons who attacked the Babri Banda women’s polling station and ransacked it late on Wednesday night. They had broken the ballot boxes and dispersed ballot papers on the ground which reportedly could not be counted.

In PK-81 case, Mr Qureshi took the plea that rejected votes were polled and changes were made in Form-45. He lost to retired Maj Shadad Khan of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal by a narrow margin of 1,200 votes.

An official of the election commission, Nauman Khan, told this correspondent that Mr Qureshi of PTI had submitted an application to the district returning officer for vote recount which was accepted. The recounting had started at 10am and would be completed by Saturday when its results would be announced, he added.

The official said that they had sent the case of attack at a polling station in PK-80 to the ECP headquarters in Islamabad which would decide whether to hold re-election on the said polling station or count the votes because the attack occurred after the polling time had ended.

PTI’s Ziaullah Bangash has won from PK-82 and Shehryar Afridi from NA-32.

In PK-82, Ziaullah Bangash of PTI retained the seat by defeating former governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain who contested the elections as an independent candidate.

In PK-81, Shadad Khan of MMA got 17,497 votes and defeated PTI’s Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi who got 16,323 votes.

In Hangu district, PTI swept all three national and provincial assembly seats. Khayal Zaman won NA-33 seat, while Shah Faisal and Mohammad Zahoor were declared winners in PK-83 and PK-84, respectively.

Mr Zaman got 28,819 votes and defeating MMA’s Atique Ullah. Mr Faisal got second consecutive stint by securing 13,983 votes. He defeated MMA’s Ubaidullah who could secure 10,141 in PK-83.

In PK-84, Mohammad Zahoor got 10,121 votes and defeated MMA’s Jehanzeb Khan who got 7,857 votes.

On the only seat of NA-51 for all the six tribal tehsils – previously known as frontier regions – MMA’s Maulana Abdul Shakoor from Lakki Marwat emerged as a winner by getting 21,896 votes. He was followed by former PTI MNA Qaiser Jamal from Darra Adamkhel with 18,689 votes.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2018