LANDI KOTAL, May 12: The district returning officer for NA-46 has recommended to the Election Commission to arrange re-polling at 21 polling stations after reports of violence and snatching of election material at these polling stations.

These polling stations have been set up at Levies centre in Shah Kas for thousands of internally displaced persons from Bara.

“We have recommended re-polling on these polling stations after reports that some contesting candidates had instigated their supporters to disrupt polling in Shah Kas,” DRO Mutahir Zeb, who is also Political Agent Khyber Agency, told Dawn on Sunday.

Polling at around 56 polling stations at Shah Kas was suspended twice on Saturday after scores of angry voters from Bara vandalised at least 19 polling stations also taking the polling boxes and ballot papers along.

Returning officer Mohammad Nasir said they also did not receive results from another two polling stations and thus it was recommended to the ECP to arrange for re-polling at 21 polling stations. He said the EC will now announce a fresh date for re-election.

Agency election commissioner Qayyum Shinwari told Dawn they were now in the process of compiling results from NA-45 and were also examining complaints from some candidates. “As soon as we finish the current job, a date will be announced for re-polling for the troubled polling stations,” he said.

Meanwhile, 18 contesting candidates from Bara have announced their boycott of the election process for Bara and demanded re-election for the whole constituency.

Malik Waris Khan, an independent candidate and former MNA, told Dawn the current results compiled by the returning officer from polling stations where votes were polled were not acceptable to them and alleged a large number of voters names were missing from the voters lists they were provided by the EC.

He recommended that fresh voters list be devised on the basis of different tribes of Bara with separate polling arrangements for all the seven major tribes of Bara.

The protesting candidates warned of a sit-in at the Khyber House in Peshawar on May 13 (Monday) if their demand was not met.

Meanwhile, Hamidullah Jan, former MNA and a contesting candidate, has accused the RO, presiding officers, election staff and even the khasadar and levies force of accepting money from two of his opponent candidates.

Talking to this scribe he alleged the entire administrative machinery was bribed to manipulate election results in favour of his opponents.

“There were some major flaws in the voters list provided to me by the EC and it was totally different from the one possessed by the presiding officers at polling stations at Shah Kas,” he alleged.