LAHORE: Polling for 10 seats of Lahore Cantonment and Walton boards each is going to be held here on Saturday (today) as around 200 candidates are in the run.

Local government elections in the Cantonments are being held after around two decades. Besides the candidates fielded by the ruling PML-N, PTI, PPP, JI and PAT, a large number of independent hopefuls are also in the race.

The interior ministry has announced a local holiday in the Cantonment areas to facilitate the voters.

Police authorities say they are deploying 5,000 personnel to ensure a peaceful day as 22 out of 300 polling stations have been declared sensitive. Polling will start at 8am and continue till 5pm without any break as the Election Commission has transported the election material to the designated places.

Unlike the by-polls for single seat of National Assembly in Karachi, canvassing here remained a low-profile affair as no main leader of the political parties in the race turned up to grace the election campaign of its respective party though the electoral exercise was much bigger than the Karachi by-polls. PTI leader Imran Khan’s plan for leading an election rally was postponed at the eleventh hour.

PTI: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Lahore chapter, has finalised preparations and constituted monitoring teams for all the 20 wards in Walton and Cantonment boards to monitor the local body elections on Saturday (today).

The PTI Lahore office has also established a central election cell to inform the institutions’ concerned as well as media in case of any irregularity committed during the polling day.

It also organised a briefing session for the polling agents to be deputed at all polling stations in the cantonment.

PTI’s Lahore president Abdul Aleem Khan said the party would utilise all its resources to check rigging in the election.

He welcomed the deployment of army to monitor elections in the cantonment.

He stressed that party’s women workers should perform their duties actively to ensure that the elections should be held in a transparent manner.

Meanwhile, PTI Punjab minority wing president and MPA Shunila Rooth said the Christian community would play a vital role for the party candidates in the cantonments polls on Saturday (today).

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2015

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