PESHAWAR, Feb 20: The recounting of votes in the National Assembly constituencies, NA-12 Swabi-1 and NA 20 Mansehra started on Wednesday morning and according to sources it would continue till late night.

The Awami National Party demanded recounting, rechecking and withholding of the official result in NA-12 till the inclusion of postal ballots.

Mohammad Rashid, party’s district information secretary told journalists after handing over the application to district returning officer Mohammad Azeem Khan Afridi that there was a difference of only 89 votes between the ANP and Swabi Jamhoori Ittehad candidates.

Salim Khan, former provincial general secretary of ANP, district general secretary Jehan Zeb Khan and the party victorious candidate from NA-13 Pervez Khan met the district returning officer. Ahmad Sultan Tareen is the returning officer for NA-12, Swabi-1 but due to his absence the application was handed over to Mr Afridi.

According to unofficial results Usman Khan Tarakai, a candidate of Swabi Jamhoori Ittehad, won election in NA-12 by getting 49,741 votes and his rival ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan got 49,652 votes.

Our correspondent adds from Mansehra: Hundreds of the activists of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Muslim Students Federation thronged the premises of the local courts on Wednesday as the retuning officer of NA 20 started the recounting and consolidation of the rejected and postal ballots respectively.

Following the victory of PML-Q candidate in NA 20 with a close margin of 138 votes against PML-N contender Gen (retd) Salahuddin Tirmizi on Tuesday, both the winner and the runner-up filed applications with Returning Officer Syed Kamal Hussein Shah for recounting of over 4,106 rejected votes.

Tirmizi also got a stay order from a local court against the declaration of the official result of the constituency, alleging that the rival candidate resorted to rigging on certain polling stations.

Speaking on the occasion, PML-N city president Shahzada Amir and others said that the district nazim was directly involved in manipulating the results of their candidate as he was winning with a margin of over 20,000 votes in the night, but the next day he was declared as the runner-up with 137 votes behind the winner.

According to the unofficial result, Sardar Shahjehan Yousaf of PML-Q got 72,299 and Gen (retd) Salahuddin Tirmizi secured 72,161 votes.

Our correspondent adds from Charsadda, Feb 20: The Awami National Party’s candidate Bashir Khan Umerzai on Wednesday filed an application for recounting of votes on NA-8, Charsadda from where former interior minister and chairman of his own faction of Pakistan People’s Party Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao was declared successful.

The candidate filed the application before the concerned returning officer under section 39 of the representation of people act on Wednesday. He has charged Mr Sherpao for taking some election staff hostages and stuffing the ballot boxes with bogus votes.

The returning officer has summoned both the parties to his office for recounting on Thursday.