PTI candidate Malik Asad Ali Khokhar emerged victorious in the by-election held on Thursday in Punjab's PP-168 (Lahore-25) constituency by a margin of 687 votes, according to provisional results aired by DawnNewsTV.

Khokhar reportedly obtained 17,579 votes whereas his opponent, PML-N's Rana Khalid, received 16,893 votes.

The seat for PP-168 was vacated by PML-N stalwart Khawaja Saad Rafique after he was elected as MNA from NA-131 constituency.

Malik Asad Ali Khokhar was earlier given the ticket to contest general election from NA-136 (Lahore-14) but had lost that seat.

Earlier in the day, polling began at 8am and continued without a break till 5pm. Overall 11 candidates contested the by-poll.

A total of 126,900 voters are registered in PP-168, out of these 73,724 are male while 53,188 are female voters.

There were a total of 83 polling stations in the constituency and 22 of these had been marked sensitive. 3,000 police officials were deployed in the area and voters went through a three-step checking process before entering the polling booth.

Polling stations were monitored through CCTV cameras. A ban was placed on the display of weapons of any sort. Furthermore, 77 overseas Pakistanis had registered to vote in the constituency.

The PPP had not fielded any candidate and announced its support for the PML-N candidate. Punjab PPP secretary general Chaudhry Manzoor announced support for the PML-N candidate after a delegation, led by PML-N MNA Pervaiz Malik, visited the PPP Secretariat.

Both PTI and PML-N candidates vigorously campaigned for the by-election and tried to woo the voters by holding public meetings as well as approaching them in a door-to-door campaign.

Use of 'modified' polling boxes

PML-N's senior vice president in Punjab, Malik Nadeem Kamran, sent a letter to the ECP secretary claiming that the party had received "several complaints from polling stations across PP-168 regarding modified polling boxes being used".

The ECP secretary was requested to urgently investigate the matter as "the opening of the polling boxes in which votes are inserted is wider than it normally is...there is enough space to put one's hand through the opening of the polling box".