KARACHI: Majority in Defence, Clifton stay indoors
By Sabihuddin Ghausi
KARACHI, Oct 10: In an extremely hot and humid day on Thursday, when temperature was close to 40 degrees Celsius, people living in downtown Burns Road, Arambagh, Ratan Talao, Pakistan Chowk, Saddar and in the shanties surrounding the posh Clifton and Defence localities, waited till late in the afternoon to come out for voting.
Majority of the residents of Defence and Clifton cantonments, however, preferred to remain indoors except those who were involved directly with the candidates.
Voters turnout was visibly low at the polling stations in the densely-populated Burns Road, Pakistan Chowk, Gizri and Delhi Colony in the morning when it was almost unbearable to come out in the open. It picked up gradually late in the afternoon after 3pm, when sea breeze started blowing.
The constituency of NA-250 — with PS-112 and PS-113 — has drawn national attention. More than a dozen candidates were in the run for the National Assembly seat, including stalwarts of five major parties.
They were Nasrin Jalil of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Dr Ikhtiar Baig of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, Mamnoon Hussain, a former Sindh Governor, of the PML (N); Wajid Jawwad of the PML (QA), a leading textile exporter and ex-chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau, and former Karachi mayor Abdul Sattar Afghani, who was dismissed and arrested in 1987 for demanding that motor vehicle tax proceeds be given to the KMC.
Reaching polling stations in Burns Road area, Ratan Talao, Pakistan Chowk and Saddar was not much of a problem for voters. The polling stations were located within hardly a mile of the residential areas and were accessible. Late in the afternoon when it was relatively cool, women and men came out in small groups and settled for an ice cream or cold drink session after voting.
For many youngsters above 18 years of age, it was a fun and adventure to be in a polling station and they found out their names in the electoral scroll. Quite a few of them came with red bands around their forehead to give a Che Guvera look, but most of them were Romeos, moving around the women booths.
Final estimates of voters’ turnout, however, remained a controversy. Nasrin Jalil of the MQM and Dr Ikhtiar Baig of the PPP expected 40 per cent turnout. Ms Jalil met this correspondent near the polling station at the Government Girls Primary School P and T No 1. She hoped that 40 per cent of the 239,000 registered voters had turned up at the 135 polling stations and majority of them had voted for her party.
The PPP candidate also shared the same hope and estimated polling of 40 per cent votes. He pined the hope on more than 30,000 registered voters in the kutcha abadis of Clifton and Defence, saying that the majority of these votes would go to his party.
Mamnoon Hussain, however, said polling in the downtown areas remained dismally low. His estimate was 22 to 23 per cent turnout in Burns Road and other areas in PS-112. He perceived a better turnout in PS-113, consisting of Clifton Cantonment and Defence areas.
An election agent of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal put his estimate at 30 per cent turnout. But he was hopeful that Abdul Sattar Afghani would return to the National Assembly.
Voters were seen trickling into the three polling stations — No 30, 31 and 32 — set up in the Government Women College, on Frere Road. At about 10am, the polling station No 30 reported 46 votes out of 1,655 registered voters. But by 3.30pm, it had reported casting of 440 votes — almost 30 per cent — and there was a safe assumption that it would go up to 35 per cent by close of the polling time.
The polling station No 31 reported delivery of 546 ballot papers to voters out of 1,836 registered voters. At polling station No 32, where 1,753 votes were registered, 448 had cast their votes by 4pm.
At the polling station No 4, with 1,538 registered votes, 571 had exercised their votes by 4pm. A random survey of about a dozen polling stations in the downtown areas to Clifton Cantonment and Defence showed that turnout was between 30 to 35 per cent.
Voters and candidates, including Nasrin Jalil and Mamnoon Hussain, complained of serious discrepancies in the voters list. It created a lot of troubles and incidents of altercation were reported at least at half a dozen polling stations. There were complaints of change of location of polling stations from Defence.
The election commission put to test endurance of the senior citizens by setting up polling stations on second and third floors of the school buildings. An elderly woman fainted at the Saifyah School near Pakistan Chowk after casting vote on the third floor and coming downstairs.
