Counting of votes in one Arandu polling station yet to begin

DROSH: Final results could not be released for the seat of the tehsil council Drosh chairman as the PTI demanded re-polling in one polling station in Arandu and stopped counting of votes there.

Officials in the District Election Commission told ChitralToday that results had been received from 55 out the total 56 polling stations in the constituency and PPP candidate Shahzada Khalid Pervez was leading with 8,271 votes against 8,160 votes of PTI’s Sultan Muhammad.

However, counting could not be started in the Kamsai polling station of Arandu where the ruling PTI wanted re-polling. 

The officials told ChitralToday that the deputy commissioner and the district monitoring in officer of the Election Commission of Pakistan had reached Kamsai and were holding on talks with the candidates to resolve the issue. 

Sources said that seeing its defeat in the election, the PTI was adamant at stopping announcement of the results by not letting counting of the votes in Kamsai in Arandu. In other three tehsils of Lower and Upper Chitral, PTI candidates have won the tehsil council chairman seats. 

 

Counting completed

The results were delayed after the PTI demanded re-polling in Kamsai polling station of Arandu and did not allow counting of the votes. In the evening on Friday, the votes were counted which showed that the PPP bagged 282 and PTI 277 votes from Kamsai. Thus the victory of the PPP was confirmed. 

Statement of PPP candidate

 Earlier, the PPP candidate for the Drosh tehsil council Shahzada Khalid Pervez has said in a statement that the election results for polling station at Kamsai are being withheld for mysterious reasons and not announced.
He said the PPP had a lead of 111 votes in other polling stations. The only understandable reason for the delay is an attempt to manipulate the results by PTI. He called upon the election commission to preserve the integrity of the election process.
This is the last polling station whose results have not yet been announced although its approaching 24 hrs.

The polling station is considered the stronghold of PPP as the Tehsil President belongs to the village.
votes of the polling station (Kamsai Arandu) have still not been counted which is a clear violation of election commission protocol. announcement of votes is being withheld.

A PTI minister also visited the polling station during this period and government machinery is being misused to influence election officers. the PTI candidate for Tehsil Nazim is trying to force re polling in the said polling station and is insisting that the votes polled should not be counted.
We request the election commission to take prompt action and order the ROs at Drosh to count the results immediately.