Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Central Leader and former minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique said on Sunday that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan lost the election from NA-131 Lahore against him and therefore the Returning Officer of NA-131 rejected his plea of recount of the total votes cast in NA-131. He was addressing a hurriedly called press conference at Lahore Press Club in which he said that he is going to the election tribunal against the result of NA-131 as the RO didn’t entertain his petition of recounting. “I have filed a request to the RO for my recount of the total votes cast in NA-131 and then he started recounting where the nominees of PTI were also present. My votes were increased slightly when the recounting of some ballot boxes was done. Then, the returning officer went inside his office and he has changed his mind regarding the recounting of all the votes when he came back after some time,” PMLN Central Leader Khawaja Saad Rafique said in the presser. He was of the opinion that the RO was earlier willing to order complete recount of the votes but then he said that the recounting would be done only of rejected votes that were around 2,800. “It is a wrong impression that I got defeated in the recount also as I want to make it clear that RO didn’t allow the recount of NA-131 where over 195,000 votes were cast. He ordered the recounting of just 2,800 rejected votes,” he said. According to former Railways minister Khawaja Saad Rafique, it was not a personal decision of RO himself on merit to not allowing the recount of the whole constituency as he received such directives from somewhere else because of the fear of PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s defeat. Khawaja Saad Rafique, who was accompanied by his Members of Provincial Assembly (MPAs) who got elected while contesting under his NA constituency, said that it is really strange that all his MPAs clinched their seats but he lost despite the fact that they all were contesting in the same constituency. “Recounting was carried out in the constituencies of my MPAs over the request of PTI but surprisingly the votes of my MPAs further increased in the recount, raising alarm bells and putting doubts in the electoral process of NA-131,” Saad said. MPA-elect Yasin Sohal and Mian Naseer were also present on the occasion. According to Saad, several ballot papers were double stamped in NA-131 just to give victory to Imran Khan as Saad said that Khan is the beloved of the system. He was of the opinion that NA-131 used to be NA-125 in 2013 from where Saad got elected in the last elections with a margin of over 40,000 votes but still PTI was demanding a recount but here they are reluctant for recount despite the fact that the margin is just some 100 votes this time and therefore lawyers of PTI were using delaying tactics in the RO office. “Khan said that he is ready to open the ballot boxes in the constituencies but here delaying tactics are being used in NA-131 from where he himself was contesting,” Saad said, while adding that he demands complete recount of his constituency in NA-131. Published in Daily Times, July 30th 2018.