Bangash, Mahmood Jan move EC over election defeat

PESHAWAR: Former provincial minister Kamran Bangash and former deputy speaker of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Mahmood Jan on Friday filed petitions with the election tribunal challenging their defeat in the last general election.

They filed the petitions in the election tribunal through their lawyer Ali Gohar Durrani. The Election Commission of Pakistan, the district returning officer and the returning officers concerned were named as respondents in the petitions.

The petitioners maintained that they were winning the election according to Form-45, but they were made to lose as per the Form-47. They alleged that the district returning officer and returning officer changed the Form-45 to manipulate the results.

They said that the losing candidates were declared victorious in the February 8 general elections. The petitioners requested the election tribunal to summon the polling agents and the presiding officers as witnesses to the court. They said that the Forms-45 were handwritten to make changes in them. They said that they had submitted applications in the election commission but the electoral watchdog did not provide any relief to them.

They quested the election tribunal to declare the victory of the returned candidates as null and void and order the election commission to prepare the results as per Form-45 by issuing a notification.