till June 29.Earlier, Anjum Raza, who was appointed as the RO for NA-130, while recording his testimony before the commission on oath, submitted that he did receive the booklets published by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) having guidelines for presiding officers and ROs for the conduct of elections.
Answering questions of Pirzada during cross examination, Anjum Raza said all the presiding officers of polling stations for the constituency had brought the election material before the polling started. He further said that they had consolidated the election results on the basis of Form 14.
Replying to Shahid Hamid, the RO testified that Sohail Butt was the returned candidate from the said constituency with Samina Khalid Ghurki the runner-up candidate while the candidate of the PTI remained third on the said constituency.
During the hearing, Qamar Ejaz who was appointed as the RO for NA-157and two provincial assembly constituencies, PP-214 and PP-215, also recorded his testimony. Replying first to the questions put by Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk, he said that there were a total of 334,495 registered voters in the NA-157 constituency while he made a requisition for printing of 400,000 ballot papers for the said constituency. While replying to Pirzada’s questions, he testified it was correct to say that there were some 179,755 registered voters for PP-214 while for PP-215, there were 154,740 registered voters. He said that for these two constituencies, he had demanded 200,000 ballot papers.
Khalid Iqbal, the RO for NA-171 and two provincial constituencies, PP-240 and PP-241, while recording his statement, said that there were 336,787 registered voters in the NA constituency for which he had asked for 390,000 ballot papers.
To a question put by Pirzada, the RO said that he did not receive any instructions for determining the volume of ballot papers to be printed but he did his own assessment for both, i.e. the NA constituency and provincial assembly constituencies.
He said that he had made the assessment for ballot papers keeping in view the polling scheme. To another question, he said that he received the ballot papers on May 8, 2013. He further testified that the assistant returning officer received the election material on his behalf at Dera Ghazi Khan, escorted by army men with ranks of major and colonel.
During the course of hearing, Farooq Sattar, senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), also recorded his statement on oath before the commission.He rejected the allegations made by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (Haqiqi).