PESHAWAR:
Polling for the vacant seat of the National Assembly constituency NA-45 Kurram in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) is currently underway.
Polling began at 8 am and will continue till 5 pm without any break.
The spokesman of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) K-P division said a day earlier that there were 198,618 registered voters among which 111,349 were men and 87,269 were women.
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He said a total of 143 polling stations had been set up, out of which 119 had been declared “very sensitive”, while 24 polling stations were categorised as “sensitive”.
A total of 16 candidates are contesting for the NA seat, including Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, Jamil Khan of Jamiat Ulema e Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) and Sher Muhammad Khan of Jamaat Islami (JI) as well as independent candidates.
Security arrangements
District Police Officer (DPO) Kurram, Arbab Shafiullah said that preparations were completed for by-elections in NA-45 and transportation of election material began on Saturday. He said that 2,100 policemen were deputed on polling duty.
The DPO urged the political leaders and workers to abide by rules and cooperate with police to maintain peace during the by-election.
Provincial Election Commissioner Shamshad Khan also directed the commissioner Kohat division to make foolproof security arrangements for the NA-45 Kurram by-poll so that voters could cast their votes without fear and risk.
The joint patrolling of Kurram Police FC and Pakistan Army is ongoing to maintain law and order. Blockades have been tightened at the entry and exit points of the district and special blockades have been established in other sensitive areas.
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Police officers are patrolling the blockades as well as the polling stations. The display of weapons, use of tinted windows and pillion riding have been banned.
Imran qualified to contest
Despite disqualification in the Toshakhana reference case, PTI chief Imran Khan is still not legally barred from contesting in future elections and was allowed to run for NA-45 (Kurram-I) by-election.
A team of ECP consisting of members from its legal wing had declared the PTI chief eligible for the by-elections after reviewing the case thoroughly and had also informed the regional election commissioner of Kurram about the same.
The polls’ supervisory body greenlighted Imran’s decision to contest the by-polls comes after the regional election commissioner had sought a legal opinion in view of the NA-45 Kurram by-election in the light of the disqualification decision.
