The returning officer of Punjab's PP-168 (Lahore-XXV) constituency on Friday confirmed the victory of PTI candidate Malik Asad Ali Khokhar in the by-elections held a day earlier.

The PTI candidate defeated PML-N’s Rana Khalid by a margin of 701 votes, according to the final consolidated result (Form-49) submitted by the returning officer.

Earlier in the day, the returning officer had ordered a recount of 33 polling stations on the request of PML-N’s candidate. Khalid had argued that the count of rejected votes was higher during the by-polls.

As per provisional results, Khokhar had a lead of 687 votes over Khalid, 1.89 per cent of the total cast votes which were 36,337.

Under Section 95(5) of the Elections Act, 2017, returning officers are to recount the ballot papers at one or more polling stations in a constituency if a contesting candidate requests so in writing and the margin of victory is less than 5 per cent of the total votes polled in the constituency, or 10,000, whichever is lesser.

Therefore, a recount was ordered by the returning officer. According to the final consolidated result, Khokhar obtained 17,571 votes whereas his opponent bagged 16,870 votes.