ISLAMABAD – By-elections will be held on 21 national and provincial seats across Pakistan on April 21 (tomorrow).
As per the schedule issued by ECP, the polling will take place on April 21 and campaign activities came to an end midnight on April 19.
Elections were originally scheduled for 23 constituencies. However, the results of two of those seats, one provincial and one national, have already been announced.
Aseefa Bhutto Zardari was elected unopposed from NA-207 Shaheed Benazirabad, while Zubair Ahmad Junejo has been elected from PS-80 Dadu.
However, elections are set to be held on NA-8 Bajaur, where independent candidate Rehan Zeb was shot down a few days before elections. His borhter Mubabark Zeb is vying for the seat as an independent candidate.
Elections are also being held on NA-44 Dera Ismail Khan-I which wa vacated by Ali Amin Gandapur, NA-119 Lahore-III which was vacated by Maryam Nawaz, NA-132 Kasur-II which was vacated by Shehbaz Sharif and NA-196 Kamber Shadadkot-I which was vacated by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.
In all, 50 candidates will be contesting the by-elections for the National Assembly’s five seats.
Punjab
In Punjab, 174 candidates are contesting in 12 provincial constituencies where the number of voters is 4,044,552 and 2,601 polling stations have been set up.
In Lahore, the by-elections will be held one National Assembly and four provincial assembly constituencies, with polling from 8 am to 5 pm.
For NA-119, Ali Pervaiz Malik of the PML-N and Shahzad Farooq of Sunni Ittehad Council are prominent among nine other candidates. In PP-147, 11 candidates including Malik Riaz and Muhammad Khan Madni are contesting on the said seat.
Moreover, in PP-149, the candidates of Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) like Muhammad Shoaib Siddiqui and Qaiser Shahzad 14 candidates are the prominent ones.
From PP-158, 22 candidates including PML-N candidate Chaudhry Nawaz and Sunni Ittehad Council’s nominee Chaudhary Moonis Elahi are contesting.
In PP-164, PML- N leader Rashid Minhas and Sunni Ittehad Council’s Muhammad Yousaf are among 20 other candidates.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the ECP said that there are 1,471,000 voters in 2 provincial constituencies, with 49 candidates in the field and 892 polling stations, 139 of which are sensitive.
Sindh
In Sindh, it said that there are 2 candidates in NA-196, where 4,237,781 voters will cast their votes, and 303 polling stations have been established, with 158 being sensitive.
Balochistan
The electoral body said that there will be by-elections in two provincial constituencies of Balochistan including BP- 20 and BP- 22 where 396,246 voters will cast their votes while 354 polling stations have been set up.
