Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Chaudhary Fawad Hussain has challenged the results of recently held by-election for constituency of National Assembly NA 63, Jhelum II in Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The runner up candidate filed an application through his counsel Faisal Hussain Chaudhary, wherein he requested the ECP for a recount of the votes of the NA 63 in order to verify the alleged illegalities, omissions and deliberate misconduct.

The applicant also requested to stay the consolidation of the polling result till the recount is conducted. The application filed under Sections 39, 103 AA, 104 of the Representation of People Act (RoPA) 1976 made Raja Matloob Mehdi of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), Jahangir Mehmood of Pakistan People Party (PPP) and Returning Officer (RO) of NA 63 Jhelum II respondents in this case.

The applicant in his petition stated that despite having won the said election he was shown the runner up candidate against the PMLN’s Mehdi. The petition said the difference between the applicant and the respondent was a meagre 7,793 votes. As per the unofficial result, the applicant scored 73,819 votes and Mehdi scored 81,612 votes. The application said that the returning officer issued unofficial results whereby the Mehdi had been illegally and unlawfully declared as the returned candidate.

It further contended that the application further said that the Chief Minister Shahbaz Shareef congratulated PMLN’s candidate at 9.30 pm when the result was conveyed through DCO to the media.

Taking notice of the situation, when applicant (Fawad Hussain) reached in the camp office of the district returning office to check the veracity of the media claims, the applicant found that by 11:00 pm, only 99 out of 314 polling stations had reached the DRO office. The RO, when confronted with the situation, opted to remain silent and took no action what so ever, stated the petition.

The petition highlighted that 147 bags did not reach the DRO office till 4:55 am and the last 47 bags didn’t reach the office of DRO till 6 am. Yet, the election result was announced prematurely.

The RO miserably failed to perform his lawful duty and ruthlessly refused to even receive the application submitted by the applicant on the first place. Thereafter, he rejected the application without even reading the contents of the application in undue haste. The applicant, in the prevailing situation, was not left with any other option except a boycott of the remaining process of counting by conveying the same in writing and leaving the premises. The RO, on the other hand, taking the advantage of the absence of the applicant, issued the already prepared results, the petition stated.