KARACHI: Jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has lost another seat in a vote recount.
According to media reports, PTI’s Sarbuland Khan, who won the Sindh Assembly seat constituency PS-112 in the February 8 general elections, lost his seat to Asif Moosa of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) conducted a recount.
The ECP’s notification confirmed that PPP’s Asif Moosa won the seat with 11,724 votes, while PTI’s Sarbuland Khan received 9,943 votes.
Initially, Sarbuland Khan, running as a PTI-backed independent candidate, was declared the winner on February 8 with 16,287 votes, compared to PPP’s Asif Moosa who had 10,784 votes.
Following the recount, Sarbuland Khan challenged the process in the Sindh High Court, arguing that the ECP lacked jurisdiction under Section 95(6) of the Election Act, 2019, to order a recount after results had been consolidated and Khan had already taken his oath as a member of the Sindh Assembly.
In a separate incident earlier this year, PTI also lost the NA-79 Gujranwala seat to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Zulfikar Bhindar of PML-N was declared the winner after a recount, defeating the PTI-backed independent candidate Ehsan Ullah Virk by a margin of 3,023 votes. Bhindar secured 95,604 votes while Virk received 92,581 votes.
