Bye-elections Held In Peaceful Manner In 35 Constituencies: ECP

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Oct, 2018 ) :Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said that the bye-elections in 35 Constituencies were held on Sunday in a free, fair and peaceful manner.

According to an official of ECP, voters exercised their right of votes to elect their representatives during polling time from 8:00am to 5:00pm without break.

He said that for the first time in the history of the country, overseas Pakistanis voters have participated in election process by casting their vote.

He said that as many as 7,364 eligible I-voters were given voters' passes for bye-elections.

The commission had issued voters passes to successful registered overseas Pakistanis during the registration process of I-voters through their email ID.

He said that only registered I-voters with having voters' passes had exercised their right of casting vote.

He said that as many as 370 candidates were in the run for bye-elections in 35 constituencies of national and provincial assemblies, out of which 218 candidates had contested from Punjab, 57 from Sindh, 59 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 36 from Balochistan.

He said that total 661 nomination papers were filed with the ECP, out of which 645 nomination papers were accepted while 16 papers were rejected.

Later, out of remaining 641 validly nominated candidates, 271 candidates got retirement or withdrawn their nomination papers.

The elections were held on 24 seats from provincial assemblies included 11 seats for Punjab�Assembly, nine for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and two each for Sindh and Balochistan.� For 11 National Assembly seats, bye-elections were held in nine constituencies in Punjab, one in Sindh and one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The constituencies of National Assembly included NA-131 Lahore-IX, NA-124 Lahore-II, NA-103 Faisalabad-III, NA-35 Bannu, NA-243 Karachi East-II, NA-69 Gujrat-II, NA-65 Chakwal-II, NA-63 Rawalpindi-VII, NA-60 Rawalpindi-IV, NA-56 Attock-II and from NA-53 Islamabad-II.

He said that two candidates had already been elected as unopposed on PP-87 Mianwali-III and PP-296 Rajan Pur-IV.

The Official said that the ECP had established a central control room at its headquarters for bye-elections while a separate complaint cell had also been established at ECP to receive complaints related with the bye-polls.

There was a facilitation/result receiving center at ECP.

A control room had also established for assistance of overseas Pakistani voters for bye-elections.

He said that the commission had established five special gender complaint desks.

These desks were established in four provinces and one at ECP Secretariat Islamabad.

He said that total registered voters of 35 constituencies were 9283,074.

He added the elections were held on amended voters' lists.

He said total 7,489 polling stations were established for bye polls, out of which 1,727 polling stations were declared as highly sensitive for bye-elections.

As many as 20 sensitive polling stations were from Punjab, 10 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three from Sindh and two from Balochistan, the Official added.

He said that a special security plan was chalked out to ensure foolproof security for sensitive polling station during polling of bye-elections.

He said that the security plan was implemented in coordination with the provincial governments and departments concerned.