SHIKARPUR: The district returning officer of the NA-202 (Shikarpur) constituency on Tuesday declared Pakistan Peoples Party’s Aftab Shaban Mirani successful after the re-checking of rejected votes of seven polling stations.

Shikarpur District and Sessions Judge Amjad Ali Kazi, the DRO, re-checked the rejected votes of the polling stations concerned, as the runner-up candidate, Dr Ibrahim Jatoi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, had filed an appeal before the Election Commission of Pakistan in this regard.

Dr Jatoi had won the May 2013 general election on NA-202 after he secured 54,633 votes against his rival Mr Mirani, who got 53,381 votes. There were total 216 polling stations and the PML-N candidate won the election with a lead of 1,252 votes.Mr Mirani challenged the results of 21 polling stations before the Sukkur election tribunal requesting it to order re-election on 21 polling stations, as he got 53,008 votes against Dr Jatoi’s 39,113 votes in the remaining 195 polling stations.

On May 6, 2014, the re-election was held on 21 polling stations and Mr Mirani was declared successful with a narrow margin of 233 votes. His total votes were 54,113 against Dr Jatoi’s 53,780 votes.

The defeated candidate, Dr Jatoi, filed an appeal before the ECP for re-checking of the rejected votes on 21 polling stations. However, the ECP ordered re-checking of the rejected votes of seven polling stations.

The re-checking of the votes was conducted on Tuesday at the district court by the DRO, District and Sessions Judge Amjad Ali Kazi, in the presence of both the candidates.

Mr Mirani was again declared successful from NA-202 after the re-checking of the votes.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2015

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