PESHAWAR, May 13: A sharp increase in the voters’ turnout was registered in the four National Assembly constituencies of the provincial capital during the May 11 elections.

Of the total registered voters, 44.08 per cent exercised their franchise on last Saturday compared with 28 per cent in the 2008 elections.

On May 11, 612,258 of the total 1,388,944 registered voters cast took part in the elections for four National Assembly constituencies.

Among them were 168,559 women, whose votes made 27.53 per cent of the total ballots polled. They were 28.78 per cent of the total women voters.

The highest votes were received by Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan, who got 90,434 votes in NA-1 constituency against 24,449 votes bagged by runner-up Haji Ghulam Bilour of Awami National Party.

Similarly, Engineer Hamidul Haq of PTI received 78,948 votes on NA-2 against his 18,772 votes received by Maulana Mohammad Saeed of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl; Sajid Nawaz of PTI received 67,214 votes against 27,207 votes bagged by Senator Haji Ghulam Ali of JUI-F, and Gulzar Khan of PTI got 55,097 votes against 20,396 votes received by Nasir Khan Musazai of PML-N in NA-4.

In the 2002 general elections, 259,696 of the total of 899,069 voters had cast votes, which was 28.88 per cent of the total votes in the said constituencies.

Later in 2008, around 343,121 of the total 1,224,799 voters had exercised their franchise, which was 28.01 per cent of the total votes.

According to the results compiled by the respective returning officers, 148,077 of the total 320,578 votes were polled in NA-1 (46.18 per cent); 144,198 of the total 331,864 votes in NA-2 (43.45 per cent); 177,823 of the total 384,086 votes in NA-3 (46.16 per cent); and 142,160 of the total 352,416 votes in NA-4 (40.34 per cent).

In the previous 2008 elections, only 22.98 per cent votes were polled in NA-1, 24.86 per cent votes were polled in NA-2, 35.6 per cent votes were polled in NA-3 and 31.66 per cent polled in NA-4.

In the present polls for the first time women turned up to cast their votes in several such polling stations where in past they were not permitted to exercise their right of franchise. According to the results around 41640 of the total 133681 female voters cast votes in NA-1 (28.12 per cent of total cast votes); 39975 of the total 142612 female voters cast votes in NA-2 (27.72 per cent); 46855 of total 165186 female voters polled votes in NA-3 (26.34 per cent) and 40089 of total 144116 female voters polled votes in NA-4 (28.19 per cent).

In the 11 provincial assembly constituencies of Peshawar the highest percentage of votes was recorded in PK-9, which is 48.98 per cent. Around 6227 voters cast vote out of the total 127145 voters in that constituency.

Dawn Report