LAHORE-
A local commission’s inspection judge, Ghulam Hussain Awan, on Saturday recorded his statement before election tribunal Judge Kazim Ali Malik regarding irregularities in Lahore’s NA-122 polling stations in May 2013 general elections.
NA-122 is one of the four constituencies where Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) demands a recount and verification of thumb impressions of voters.
PTI Chief Imran Khan had lost to the present National Assembly speaker Ayaz Sadiq in this constituency.
Earlier this week, the commission had submitted a report to the tribunal in this regard.
In today’s hearing, Awan told the tribunal judge that several seals of ballot bags were broken while Forms 14 and 15 were not present in a number of the ballot bags.
Awan further said that over 30,000 counter foils did not have stamps or seals.
He added that fake ballots were not found during vote audit in NA-122 and it was up to the election tribunal to decide on irregularities found in the constituency.
The tribunal Judge stated that he would personally inspect the ballots and make a decision based on the commission’s findings.
The tribunal has summoned 150 witness of January 31 to testify that rigging did not take place in NA-122. The witnesses’ list was submitted to the tribunal by
the counsel of Ayaz Sadiq.
The report, submitted earlier by the commission , found out that there were 180,115 verified votes and 23,639 votes without signature/ stamp of the authorised polling staff.
3,642 votes were declared invalid or rejected.
The report stated that Sadiq had obtained 92,393 votes whereas Khan received 83,542 votes.
The remaining 4,180 votes went to other candidates, it added.