Daily Times

Following a vote recount in PP-123 Toba Tek Singh-VI, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) candidate Sonia Ali lost to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Pir Qutab Ali Shah alias Ali Baba by 17 votes.

The returning officer (RO) of PP-123, Shehwar Amin Wahga, has issued Form 49 for the constituency which tabulates consolidated results including postal ballots.

The Lahore High Court (LHC) had ordered a recount in the Punjab Assembly constituency of PP-123 on August 3, after the PML-N candidate Shah had filed the petition after losing the July 25th election to PTI candidate Sonia.

Shah had argued in his petition that a total of 128,000 votes were cast in PP-123. From these, 4,500 votes were rejected. He also claimed that his party’s polling agent was not issued Form-45 after the counting of votes on Election Day.

The PML-N candidate had alleged that the PTI candidate was made to win through ‘rigging’ and the RO had rejected his request for a recount.

Admitting his petition, Justice Karim had issued orders for a vote recount in the constituency, which led to the PML-N candidate’s victory.

Earlier, another PTI candidate Shah Farman, who was elected on PK-70 Peshawar, lost his provincial assembly seat to Awami National Party (ANP) candidate Khushdil Khan on August 2 following a recount.

Khan had filed an application with the relevant RO for a vote recount after losing to Farman by a margin of 47 votes.

As per results of the recount, the ANP leader bagged 15,544 votes against Farman, the former KP information minister, who obtained 15,357 votes. Khan was therefore declared the winner by a margin of 187.

Published in Daily Times, August 10^th 2018.