Election petition: LHC orders recount at NA-157

Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the LHC directed the Khanewal district and sessions judge to recount all the votes.

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday ordered a recount of ballot papers at NA-157 (Khanewal) on a petition challenging the election of PML-Q MNA Hamid Yar Khan Hiraj.

Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the Lahore High Court directed the Khanewal district and sessions judge to recount all the votes cast in the constituency in the presence of the petitioner and the respondent.

The judge passed the order on a petition filed by PML-N’s Muhammad Khan Daha, who submitted that Hiraj’s brother, then the district nazim of Khanewal, had rigged the 2008 polls in the respondent’s favour, with the help of polling staff and the district coordination officer.

He said that many votes in his favour in the constituency had been declared invalid. If they had not, Daha said, he would have won the seat by 4,000 votes, instead of losing it by some 600 votes in the official count.

He also contended that provisions of Section 39 (3) of the Representation of Public Act 1976 were violated when his application for a recount was rejected by the Election Commission and the returning officer.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2011.