0.374 Million Voters To Exercise Right Of Franchise In NA 226 Latifabad

A multi-party electoral contest is underway in Latifabad based NA 226 constituency of the National Assembly in Hyderabad district for July 25 general elections in which 0.374 million voters to exercise their right of franchise.

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Jul, 2018 ) :A multi-party electoral contest is underway in Latifabad based NA 226 constituency of the National Assembly in Hyderabad district for July 25 general elections in which 0.374 million voters to exercise their right of franchise.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), which has been successively winning this constituency since 1988, is defending its hitherto electoral invincibility in NA 226.The MQM-P's incumbent convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui was also elected from this seat in 2013.

The challenge to the party has been thrown by Hafiz Tahir Majeed of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Ali Muhammad Sahito of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Rashid Ali Khan of Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), Jamshed Ali Shaikh of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) and Faisal Nadeem Shaikh of Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek (AAT), among others.Although, in the past elections MQM received the higher number of votes from Latifabad, PPP and Jamaat-i-Islami had also been polled tens of thousands of votes.

Sahito is contending from the constituency for third consecutive time since 2008 general elections.

He bagged 25,343 votes in 2008 and 14,701 in 2013 as a PPP candidate.Majeed, who besides being a candidate for NA 226 is also district head of both MMA Hyderabad and Jamaat-i-Islami, which is a constituent party in the MMA.

In 2013 general elections Shaukat Ali Shaikh of JI bagged 13,500 votes while in 2002 some 16,986 votes were cast for MMA's Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, who was also a worker of JI.

In contrast, the MQM's candidates were always polled far higher votes, securing 168,136 in 2008 and 141,035 in 2013.

Among the recent 3 general elections, the 2002 were the exception when the party's Prof Khalid Wahab was elected MNA with only 36,755 votes against 16,986 of MMA and 8,762 of PPP.In addition to the PPP and MMA, the PSP, PTI and MML have entered as new challengers to the MQM-P.In the last general elections the PTI did not contest on the NA seat of Latifabad though it fielded a candidate on one of the 2 provincial assembly seats in Latifabad.All the 3 parties are carrying out enthusiastic election campaign in the constituency like the other 3 parties. Latifabad taluka's population is 672,504 with some 374,082 people, including 207,364 male and 166,718 female voters registered to vote.As many as 287 polling stations comprising 148 for male, 132 for female and 7 for combined voters have been set up.There will be 842 polling booths including 467 for male and 375 for female voters.