ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has finalized all necessary arrangements to hold bye-elections in 35 constituencies on Sunday in a free, fair and transparent manner.
According to an official of the ECP, the election will be held on 11 National Assembly seats and 24 seats of the provincial assemblies, including 11 seats in Punjab Assembly, nine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and two each in Sindh and Balochistan assemblies. He said the commission has already issued amended voter lists to the districts concerned as the polling will be held on new electoral rolls.
He said the total registered voters in the country have reached the figure of 106,000,239 with 59,243,889 male (55.89 percent) and 46,756,350 female (44.11 percent) voters. He said out of the total registered voters, 60,697,418 are from Punjab, 22,394,212 from Sindh, 17,839,845 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (including FATA), 4,302,304 from Balochistan and 766,460 voters from the federal capital.
He said in Punjab, the total number of male voters is 33,690,140 while female voters is 27,007,278. In Sindh, the male voters are 12,438,375 while female voters are 9,955,837. Similarly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the male voters are 10,220,103 while the female voters are 7,619,742. In Balochistan, the male voters are 2,487,470 while the female voters are 1,814,834, while in the federal capital the male voters are 407,801 and the female voters are 358,659.
The official said that a special security plan has been chalked out to ensure fool proof security at sensitive polling station on the polling day.
The official said the ECP has issued voter passes to successful registered 7,364 I-voters for the bye-elections. He said all the registered I-voters can cast their votes in bye-elections.
Meanwhile, the ECP has established a control room for assistance of overseas Pakistani voters. He said that voter passport was necessary for overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes in the bye-elections.
Published in Daily Times, October 14th 2018.
