Pleas approved of Saad Rafique, Abid Sher Ali, Aleem Khan for vote recount

By
Riaz Shakir
|

LAHORE: Pleas for vote recount filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders Saad Rafique and Abid Sher Ali were approved by the respective Returning Officers on Friday.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Aleem Khan's plea was also approved.

Rafique challenged his opponent Imran Khan’s victory in the closely contested NA-131 Lahore 9 constituency. The former railways minister alleged that the presiding officer deliberately rejected hundreds of votes.

In his application, the PML-N leader has demanded a recount of the votes from the said constituency. Until the votes are recounted, the results from the constituency should not be announced, he has requested.

Imran won NA-131 Lahore 9 with 84,313 votes, defeating Rafique who managed 83,633 votes, according to the unofficial results from all polling stations in the constituency.

PML-N's Abid Sher Ali has challenged PTI's Farrukhh Habib in NA-108 Faisalabad.

In addition, PTI’s Aleem Khan’s plea for a vote recount in NA-129 Lahore has been approved by the Returning Officer (RO). The RO has summoned the winner, PML-N’s Ayaz Sadiq Saturday at 10am.

Aleem in his plea stated the constituency’s results stand in contrast to facts, adding that the polling agents were not provided with Form 45, which is a statement of the count.

He also claimed that the polling agents were expelled from the polling stations during the vote count.

Sadiq won the seat with 103,021 votes, while Aleem secured 94,879 votes.

Poll results released by the Election Commission of Pakistan show the PTI leading in the National Assembly. As PTI workers from across the country celebrated the results, the outgoing PML-N rejected the results citing "outright rigging" and accusing officials of preventing its representatives from overseeing the count.