HYDERABAD: Sindh High Court’s Hyderabad division bench comprising Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput and Justice Mohammad Iqbal Mahar on Friday restrained the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from notifying results of PS-48 Mirpurkhas-II contest of the July 25 general elections in which Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) candidate Zulfikar Shah was unofficially declared winner against his uncle and disgruntled candidate of the same party Syed Ali Nawaz Shah.

The court issued notices to respondents as well as the deputy attorney general and additional advocate general for Aug 7, when it would take up the matter at 11am.

Syed Ali Nawaz Shah had filed a petition through Advocate Noorul Haq Qureshi stating that he had contested for the seat as an independent candidate. He submitted in court that he was aggrieved by the conduct of the election functionaries as far as the Election Act of 2017 and the prescribed rules were concerned.

The bench in its order restrained the ECP and other official respondents from notifying the PS-48 results if the same were not notified yet.

He claimed that at only a few of the total 131 polling stations the Form 45 was provided to polling agents.

He informed court that the provisional results showed that he had polled 36,241 votes against his rival candidate Zulfikar Shah’s 38,097 votes and the difference was 1,856 votes.

He pointed out that as many as 3,248 votes were rejected. Therefore, he said, the returning officer concerned was requested to order a recount of ballot papers of all polling stations of the constituency as provided under Section 95 of Election Act of 2017. However, he said, the RO rejected the application through the July 28 order after which the petitioner moved an application before the ECP the same day but without any response so far.

Taj Mallah retains victory in Badin

BADIN: With the completion of recounting of votes polled in PS-73 Badin-IV conducted on the request of losing candidate Dr Fehmida Mirza of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), it was declared that Haji Taj Mohammed Mallah of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) retained his victory pending consolidation and notification of the result.

The recounting process had started on Saturday (July 28) but the process was disrupted allegedly due to Dr Fehmida Mirza’s attitude towards her rival candidate, returning officer and others on election duty. It was further delayed as Dr Mirza challenged an ECP letter as ‘unauthorised’. The letter had allowed the RO to continue the recounting process despite objections by her. She also moved the Sindh High Court against the results, RO’s decisions and the ECP letter but her petition was dismissed on Friday (Aug 3).

The final unofficial results after the recounting gave Mr Mallah a lead of 903 votes. The tally shows that Mr Mallah polled 37,224 votes against Dr Mirza’s 36,321 votes.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2018