LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday suspended the victory notification of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Azhar Qayyum from NA-81 Gujranwala.

Sunni Ittehad Council’s Bilal Aijaz challenged Azhar Qayyum’s victory in the Lahore High Court. Bilal Aijaz, an independent candidate backed by PTI, was declared the winner with 117,717 votes while the PML-N candidate finished as runner-up with 109,926 votes

Bilal in his plea stated that he was declared the winner with the lead of 8,000 votes, but in the recount, he was declared runner-up and PML-N’s candidate was declared winner. However, following a request for a recount of votes, the Election Commission of Pakistan declared the recount in favour of the opposition candidate, Azhar Qayyum.

The plea further said that the returning officer had reduced petitioner Chaudhry’s votes by 2,500 during the recounting process, and sought cancellation of the PML-N leader’s victory notification.

In response to the petition, the LHC decided to suspend the notification of PML-N’s candidate victory, pending further investigation into the matter. It is to be noted that on March 17, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) notified the victory of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Azhar Qayyum as MNA from NA-81 after a recount.