Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) has claimed to recover 100 votes from the custody of an unauthorized person in a polling station during the Sialkot by-polls in PP-38, reporter 24News HD TV channel on Wednesday.

PML-N Punjab President Rana Sanaullah addressing a press conference at the Vario House in Sialkot said they found 100 votes from an aide of the Presiding Officer (PO) of Polling Station number 113-114 of Pathanawali area.

Sanaullah claimed that the PO’s aide was also involved in casting fake votes on this polling station. When he was checked by the PML-N polling agents, 100 votes were recovered from his custody that was illegal.

He demanded the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to take notice of the incident and should make sure transparency on the polling stations.

The PML-N leader said that though they had handed over the culprit identified as Asif to the police but the case was yet to be registered.

Sanaullah said that they had also launched a complaint in the ECP against the (alleged) PO Farasat Iqbal who is a lecturer and gave access to his aide Asif to manoeuvre the elections.

He said they had urged the ECP to remove the PO from Pathanawali polling stations but no one had taken action on their request.

He also confirmed that PML-N workers and voters were casting their votes as well as guarding the polling stations to stop rigging from the ruling party and the candidate.

We were seriously concerned that fake votes may not be cast through presiding officers at 20 to 30 polling stations in the PP-38 by-elections like the previous incident of Daska Fog which may affect the PML-N vote, he added.

PML-N Punjab President also demanded the Chief Election Commissioner to monitor the by-election personally and remove the PO involved in wrongdoings in the Sialkot constituency PP-38.

During the election process, a fight between PML-N and the ruling party—Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers at the Vario Polling Station was also observed.

But, the law enforcement agencies especially the Rangers reached over there within no time and dispersed the charged workers from both sides.

Reporter Mian Muhammad Ishfaq