NA-122 polls: RO rejects Aleem’s pleas for vote recount

LAHORE: The returning officer of NA-122 Zahid Iqbal on Tuesday dismissed the applications of PTI’s Abdul Aleem Khan, seeking recount of votes polled in the October 11 by-polls.
The RO has also rejected an application of similar nature filed by an independent candidate Khurram Qureshi. Dismissing the applications, the RO observed that he had invited all the candidates and their representatives before announcing the final result but no one turned up.
He said the result had been announced and he was no more authorised to order recounting.recounting. He said the election commission had the power to entertain such applications. Aleem had alleged in his application that rejected votes were counted in favour of Ayaz Sadiq, the returned candidate of PML-N. Qureshi said he was allotted symbol of “goat” and votes cast in favour of his symbol were counted as cast for “lion”, which is election symbol of the PML-N. He asked the RO to hold recounting of the votes.