Ex-PM Gilani’s two sons boycott vote recounting process

MULTAN: PPP candidate from NA-154 Multan-I Syed Abdul Qadir Gilani and Syed Ali Musa Gilani from NA-157 boycotted recounting of votes Sunday.

Talking to reporters, Syed Abdul Qadir Gilani said the recounting process was not fair, so he decided to boycott it and will be filing petition before the election tribunal.

He said when the first bag of ballot papers was opened, it was containing counterfeit ballot papers without thumb impressions and he demanded the returning officer to declare those votes invalid but he refused to do so, saying the matter was beyond his jurisdiction. He said massive rigging was planned for favouring the PTI and the PPP mandate was stolen.

Meanwhile, newly-elected PTI MNA from NA-157 Syed Zain Qureshi said the recounting process was stopped due to boycott of his rival candidate Syed Ali Musa Gilani.

He said Ali Musa Gilani had filed an application for recounting, but boycotted after 14 hours process. He claimed that his 500 votes increased after recounting.

While addressing a press conference Sunday, Zain said he bagged 77,370 votes while his rival PPP candidate Ali Musa secured 70,778 votes and the PML-N candidate Abdul Ghaffar Dogar got 62083 votes. However, he said the returning officer issued a notification of final result and declared him winner.