OKARA: The PTI runner-up candidate in PP-190 Rai Hammad Aslam Kharal filed a writ petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC), requesting it to restrain the Election Commission Pakistan (ECP) from issuing the result notification until the recounting of the ballots.

In his plea, Mr Kharal submitted that the respondent number four, the returning officer (RO), had not properly compiled the results in the constituency as Form 45 of various polling stations were missing.

The petitioner also pointed out that the RO had unjustifiably counted the result of Form 45 of NA-141 Okara-1 polling stations of 9,181 and 183 instead of stations of PP-190 Okara-8. Besides the returning officer, other 11 respondents include the winner MPA Chaudhry Ghulam Raza Rubera.

Justice Shahid Kareem fixed the petition on Aug 6 for preliminary arguments.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2018