ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has approached the Supreme Court (SC) against the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) decision to order a recount of votes in Lahore’s NA-131 after the results of the July 25 general elections.
PTI leader Babar Awan submitted an appeal in the SC during Monday on behalf of the PTI chief. Awan argued that Imran was declared the winner even after a recount of the rejected votes.
On August 4, the LHC had ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to recount the votes in NA-131 on the PML-N’s petition. The court had also barred the ECP from issuing a notification declaring Imran as the winning candidate from the constituency.
PML-N leader and former minister Khawaja Saad Rafique, who lost the election to Imran by just 680 votes, had approached the court for the recount.
Imran had received 84,313 votes while Rafique got 83,633 votes. Earlier, the returning officer had dismissed Rafique’s application for a vote recount.
Earlier, Rafique had alleged that massive irregularities occurred during the vote counting process. The PML-N leader had filed a complaint with the returning officer (RO) concerned and claimed that the presiding officer concerned had deliberately rejected hundreds of votes.
In his victory speech, the PTI chairman had promised to stand with those political parties that cried foul and help them in the investigation process. “Today I say, in any constituency you want to investigate, we are ready to stand with you and investigate it. This is the cleanest election in Pakistan’s history,” he had remarked.
