The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday ordered a re-poll at two polling stations in Balochistan’s PB-41 constituency where two presiding officers were allegedly kidnapped and forced to give in rigged results. The orders were issued on a petition filed by Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) Mir Mujeebur Rehman Mohammad Hasani after his lost the election. In his petition, Hasani had maintained that the results of polling stations number 44 and 45 in Washuk were missing from the final result of the PB-41 constituency. As the hearing went underway, a returning officer told the commission that two presiding officers concerned were allegedly abducted on the election day, and hence the results of their polling stations were not included in the final results. The returning officer quoted the two presiding officers as claiming that they were forced to submit the results compiled by their abductors. Polling station 44 presiding officer had earlier told the ECP that “several masked men came and took me with them… after several hours I was handed the Form-45.” The ECP had earlier reserved its decision pertaining to the results of the two polling stations. ECP orders recount in Larkana’s PS-13 Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan on Tuesday ordered a recount in PS-13 (Larkana). The recount was ordered after an ECP bench, headed by the chief election commissioner, heard a petition filed by Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) candidate Adil Altaf for a recount in the constituency. According to the petition, a total of 103,965 votes were cast in the constituency, of them 99,379 votes were found to be correctly polled. “This means that the number of discarded votes stands at 4,586, while the difference between the winner and the runner-up candidate is only 899 votes.” Pakistan Peoples Party’s Hizbullah Bughio had earlier won the seat. Published in Daily Times, September 12th 2018.