‘Dhandli complex’: PML-N retains PP-150 in vote recount

Lead widens slightly in recount.

LAHORE:

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Mian Marghoob Ahmed was declared winner in the PP-150 after recount.

He was declared winner with a lead of 376 votes from Lahore’s PP-150 constituency. The lead widened by 76 votes in the recount.

The recount for all 147 polling stations was ordered by Chief Election Commissioner Justice Tassaduq Husain Jilani after he took suo moto notice of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) protest of alleged rigging in the August 22 by-elections.

In the recount, the PML-N candidate secured 18,526 valid votes and the PTI candidate secured 18,074 votes. As many as 1,138 votes were declared invalid for not having the returning officer’s signatures or stamps.  In the original count, Margoob Ahmed was credited with 18,870 votes and PTI’s Mehar Wajid 18,494 votes.

Talking to newsmen after the recount, Marghoob Ahmed said the PTI chairman should rename his party as ‘Dhandli Party’ (rigging party).

Commenting on the 1,138 invalid votes, he said these were likely the result of negligence by polling staff. His supporters lifted him and carried him on their shoulders and chanted slogans for the PML-N. Meher Wajid, the losing candidate, vowed to challenge the results again. He claimed that the results were tampered with.

He said he had pointed this out but the returning officer did not entertain his objection. He said there were no signatures and stamps on ballot papers from more than 40 polling stations. He demanded that the Election Commission of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2013.