PESHAWAR: The turnout remained low during by-polls for three National Assembly seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa no rush was seen at the polling stations.

Though the NA-31 Peshawar comprises urban neighbourhood of the provincial capital, the usual hustle and bustle was missing at most of the polling station as the voters appeared least interested in the by-elections.

“From morning till ending of the polling time, we haven’t seen any queue of voters always observed during the general and local bodies’ elections,” a police constable deployed at a polling station at Government Girls Primary School Wazir Bagh told Dawn.

Another official said that the enlisted votes at booth No.4 were 1908, however, only 94 voters turned up for casting their votes until two hours before ending the polling time.

No untoward incident reported in any constituency

Also, no rush was seen at the camps of political parties established outside the polling stations while in general elections huge rush could be seen of party workers at their camps.

At the polling station for male established at Government High School Kakshal No.4, the number of registered voters was 2400, however, till 3:30pm only 600 people had polled their votes.

The polling process in Peshawar was concluded peacefully. A sufficient number of police and Frontier Corps officials were deployed in and outside polling stations to provide security to the voters and maintain law and order situation.

The district monitoring officer, Shahabud Din, issued notice to ANP lawmaker Samar Haroon Bilour for making video of her vote casting on the premises of the polling station in violation of sections 175 and 178 of Election Act, 2017. “You are called upon to appear in person or through your counsel before the undersigned on October 17 (Monday) in the office of DMO,” reads the notice issued to her. The ECP sprung into action when the video of her vote casting circulated on social media.

The by-polls were conducted in three National Assembly constituencies in Peshawar, Charsadda and Mardan districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

ECP had set up 979 polling stations for three constituencies, out of which 745 were declared highly sensitive and 234 sensitive. In the by-polls on the three seats, 1.45 million people, including 808,038 men and 642,651 women, used their right to vote.

Sixteen candidates were in the run including former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan, who contested elections on all the three seats.

Of the 979 polling stations, 429 were for men, 351 for women and 199 for both while 3,194 polling booths were established including 1,811 for men and 1,383 for women.

ECP had declared all 265 polling stations in NA-31 Peshawar highly sensitive including 146 for men, 117 for women and two combined.

Four candidates contested elections for NA-22 including former prime minister Imran Khan, Mohammad Qasim of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Abdul Waseh of Jamaat-i-Islami and independent contender Mohammad Sarwar.

Imran Khan, Awami National Party provincial chief Aimal Wali Khan, Mujeebur Rehman of JI and independent candidate Sparlay Mohmand contested for NA-24.

Eight candidates contested by-elections for NA-31 including Mr Imran, ANP veteran Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, Mohammad Aslam of JI, Saeedullah Khan of Rah-i-Haq Party, Abdul Qadir of Tehreek-i-Jawanan Pakistan, former MNA Shaukat Ali, who had vacated this seat and was a covering candidate for Mr Imran, and independent candidates Emran Khan and Shaukat Ali.

Muhammad Jamal Hoti adds from Mardan: by-polls in NA-22 constituency completed peacefully as no untoward incident happened.

However, some minor verbal brawls between workers of rival parties were reported in Katlang tehsil. As per police officials, strict and foolproof security arrangements were made to maintain law and order during the by-polls in the constituency.

The counting of votes was under way till filing of this report. The un-official results were yet to finalise by the relevant officials.

Faiz Muhammad from Charsadda adds: By-elections for NA-24 also held peacefully amid tight security.

ANP central president Asfandyar Wali Khan and provincial president Aimal Wali Khan polled their votes at a polling station set up in Raza Khan Kallay.

The turnout remained low as the leaders of political parties failed to pull out voters from their houses.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2022