Father of denotified GB CM wins Astore by-poll

ASTORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate Justice (retd) Muhammad Khurshid Khan clinched victory in the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly GBLA-13- Astore-1 by-election, according to unofficial results.

The PTI candidate secured 6,191 votes, while PMLN’s Rana Farman Ali polled 4,899 votes in the by-election. PPP’s Abdul Hameed gained 4,079 votes. The voters’ turnout remained over 50 percent. Women also cast their votes with enthusiasm. Women with infants were also seen casting their votes at polling stations.

No untoward incident was reported from any of the polling stations, except for the Tallah polling station, where the voting process had to be stopped due to a clash between two groups.

After the polling, PMLN and other parties submitted an application for recounting the votes and asked the ECP not to announce the final results till the completion of the vote recount.

The Election Commission of Pakistan had denotified Khalid Khurshid as chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan. Earlier, the Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court had disqualified CM Khalid Khurshid in a fake degree case.

The petitioner had argued that Khurshid’s law degree was fake and he should be disqualified under articles 62 and 63. Khurshid claimed to have received a law degree from London but it could not be verified. Khalid Khurshid was in office since December 2020 and has been a close aide of PTI chairman.