Major political parties including Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-F) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have fielded their candidates for NA-44, Dera Ismail Khan-I by-election scheduled to be held on April 21. The national assembly seat was left vacant by Ali Amin Gandapur, who became chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to District Election Commission (DEC), as many as 18 candidates belonging to different political parties and independent ones including Faisal Amin Khan, Maulana Zia Ur Rehman, Maulana Ubaid Ur Rehman, Farhan Afzal Dhap, Muhammad Kafeel Ahmad, Aziz Ullah Alizai and others submitted their nomination papers for the by-elections on NA-44.
This constituency, consisting 57 village and 129 neighborhood councils, has about 772267 population and a total of 391882 registered voters including 208481 males and 183401 females. The scrutiny of the nomination papers would be done till March 21 while the the last date for filing appeals against the decisions of the ROs about rejecting and accepting the nomination papers would be March 25. The appeals would be decided by the appellate tribunal by March 28 and on the same date, the revised list of candidates would be issued. The candidates could withdraw their papers on March 29 and a final list of the candidates along with the allotted election symbols would be issued on March 30. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday said that the bye-poll in two National Assembly and two provincial assembly’s constituencies would be held on April 21.
According to the spokesman of ECP, the bye-poll would be held in NA-08 Bajaur, PK-22 Bajaur-IV, NA-44 DI Khan-1 and PK-91, Kohat. He said that a list of the candidates, who submitted nomination papers, had been issued while the scrutiny of the papers would be done till March 21, adding that the last date of filing appeals against the decisions of the ROs about rejecting and accepting the nomination papers would be March 25.
