Shah Farman wins both KP PA seats

PESHAWAR: A former provincial minister Shah Farman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has won the election from two provincial assembly (PA) constituencies.

He won the election on the provincial assembly constituency PK-70 with a slight margin of just 47 votes and the PK-71 with a big margin of 8,107 votes against his opponent.

According to the results issued by the returning officer, Shah Farman won the election on PK-70 with the lead of just 47 votes against former deputy speaker, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Khushdil Khan, of the Awami National Party (ANP).

Shah Farman bagged 15,404 votes against the 15, 357 bagged by Khushdil Khan. The total number of voters in the constituency were 1,11,112 including 65,138 men and 45,974 women. The number of votes polled in the constituency stood at 50,717 including, 36,523 men and 14,194 women, while 2,095 were rejected.

The turnout stood at 45.64 percent. A total of nine candidates were contesting election from the constituency and a nail-biting contest had been predicted between the PTI and ANP candidates.

The contest was very close and the position of the two candidates was changing from time to time as results from a total of 79 polling stations started pouring in.

The supporters of the two parties were guessing and claiming victory for own candidates till late at night as the Election Commission of Pakistan had failed to issue the official results as its mechanism proved a total failure to ensure timely official results.

Chief Election Commissioner Justice (r) Sardar Muhammad Raza announced the first official result at 4 am early in the morning and cited a technical fault in the system as the primary cause of delay in announcement of official results. It resulted in the expression of reservations by various political parties about the process.

The supporters of PTI and ANP claimed the victory of their party candidates. At one time reports of victory of Khushdil Khan poured in but later in official results, it was declared that Shah Farman had won the election. The total number of voters in the PK-71 constituency were 132,426, including, 79,276 men and 53,150 women.

The number of votes polled in the constituency was 48,568, including 37,285 men and 13,220 women. A total of 1,938 ballots were rejected. The turnout was 38.14 percent.

Shah Farman comfortably won the election on PK-71 by securing 17,309 votes against 9,202 polled to Sifatullah of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Shah Farman was elected member provincial assembly for the first time in the 2013 general elections and got a berth in the provincial cabinet of former chief minister Pervez Khattak. He was appointed as minister for public health and also served as provincial information minister. He had won the election on previous PK-10 seat against Khushdil Khan of ANP by securing 11,853 votes against the latter’s 10,309 votes.