KURRAM: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chair­man and former prime minister Imran Khan on Sunday trounced his Pakistan Dem­o­cratic Movement-backed rival and other candidates to win the by-poll on the Nat­ional Assembly’s constituency NA-45 Kurram-1.

According to unofficial results of all 143 polling stations, Mr Khan rec­e­ived 20,748 votes against 12,718 secured by his close rival Jamil Khan.

The turnout remained around 18.4 per cent as voters mostly stayed away from the polling process.

With this victory, Mr Khan has won all the four National Assembly seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where by-elections were held for filling seats dec­lared vacant after the resignations of the then incumbent MNAs, belonging to PTI.

This seat had fallen vacant with the resignation of ex-MNA Fakhar Zaman Khan.

With 16 candidates in the run, the Election Commission of Pakistan had set up 143 polling stations out of which 119 were declared as most sensitive and remaining 24 as sensitive.

Police, Levies and paramilitary forces were deployed at the polling stations. No untoward incident was reported from any polling station.

A total of 198,618 voters, including 111,349 male and 87,269 female voters, exercised their right to vote.

Initially, polling in NA-45 was scheduled to be held along with the other three constituencies on Oct 16, but the ECP had postponed it and later on fixed Oct 30 for the purpose. In the other three-constituencies of NA-22 (Mardan), NA-24 (Charsadda) and NA-31 (Peshawar), Mr Khan had emerged victorious.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2022