LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) withheld on Monday Rana Sanaullah’s victory notification from NA-106 and issued notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for Tuesday.

Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh heard two petitions against PML-N’s Sanaullah seeking a complete recount of ballot papers as well as his disqualification. The petitioner pleaded that the ECP be directed to withhold its notification of NA-106 results. Petitioner Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate Dr Nisar Ahmed, who lost the election to the PML-N leader in a recount as well, said Sanaullah got 106,310 votes and he himself got 103,779 votes. The returning officer rejected his plea for a complete recount.

The petitioner said Sanaullah caused harm to the sanctity of Islam by his certain statements.

The court also reserved its verdict on a petition by PPP candidate for NA-114 Faisal Saleh Hayat who seeks the complete vote recount.

The petitioner counsel pleaded that his client got 106,454 votes while PTI’s Mehboob Sultan obtained 106,043 votes. He said 12,970 votes were rejected and the returning officer stopped recount after 10 polling stations’ recount. By then, the defeat margin was decreed from 589 to 538.

He requested the court to issue order for a complete recount in the constituency.

The same court restrained the ECP from issuing victory notification of PTI’s candidate from NA-118, on a plea by PML-N’s Shizra Mansab Khan. She pleaded that she lost election with a margin of 2,405 while 9,257 votes were rejected. She said her polling agents were kicked out of polling stations and massive irregularities were committed from 6pm to 8 pm on the election day.

The court also reserved its verdict on a petition challenging PTI-information secretary Fawad Ch’s win from PP-27, Jhelum,

The court also stayed victory notification of PML-N candidate from PP-123, Toba Tek Singh, and sought reply from the ECP.

OKARA: Lahore High Court’s Justice Mamoonur Rasheed has directed the ECP not to issue notification of the victory of MPA-elect Ch Ghulam Raza Rubera from PP-190 (Ok-8) and issued notices for Wednesday to 15 respondents, including ECP and DRO. Petitioner and runner-up, PTI candidate Rai Hammad Aslam’s counsel Muhammad Sohail Dar told Dawn that they had requesting for recount all ballot papers of PP-190. The judge, after preliminary arguments by the counsel, admitted the petition and granted stay against the issuance of notification by the ECP.

TOBA TEK SINGH: Justice Shahid Karim of Lahore High Court ordered on Monday recount in NA-112.

Earlier on Friday, the court had restrained Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from issuing notification of the result in NA-112 from where PML-N’s Junaid Anwar Chaudhry was declared winner after checking of rejected votes and counting of postal ballots on July 28.

Defeated PTI nominee Chaudhry Muhammad Ashfaq had filed a petition before LHC in which he had taken the plea that RO had refused to recount the ballot papers of the winner and defeated candidates on the request of the petitioner.

Meanwhile, recounting of votes in PP-118 (Gojra) continued on the third consecutive day on Monday.

Published in Dawn, August 07th, 2018