PML-N leader Miftah Ismail has challenged the victory of PPP's Qadir Mandokhel in the by-poll of NA-249 in the election tribunal of the Sindh High Court, reported 24NewsHD TV channel. 

In his petition filed in the election tribunal on Monday, Miftah presented the grounds that 900 votes of his side were rejected during the re-counting while 500 votes of PPP candidate Qadir Mandokhel were rejected too. He was of the view that the candidate who secured more votes, there was a chance that his ballot papers were rejected more.”

He said it was the mistake of the presiding officer (PO) and alleged that the PPP announcement of various development schemes before the by-poll also came in the form of rigging. 

“There is clear evidence of rigging,” PML-N leader Miftah said in his application to the election tribunal. 

Miftah alleged that Mandokhel was declared winner by rigging.

Mandokhail of the Pakistan People’s Party was declared winner of Karachi’s NA-249 constituency after securing 16,156 votes. The runner-up was PML-N’s Miftah Ismail who lost with a margin of only 683 votes.

Mandokhail, 58, is a lawyer by profession. In 2002, he contested elections for the first time from the PTI’s PS-89 constituency but lost. But in 2008, Mandokhail contested independently and five years later, in 2013 he joined the PML-N.

In 2018, Mandokhail secured a PPP ticket to contest from NA-249. He lost to PTI’s Faisal Vawda. In fact, the PPP candidate won only by 7,236 votes.

Reporter Waqas Khan