MARDAN, Dec 7: Election activities are gaining momentum in Mardan district as candidates have begun putting up posters and holding corner meetings in their respective constituencies.

After scrutiny, the nomination papers of 20 provincial and National Assembly candidates, including a former provincial irrigation minister, were rejected.

The former irrigation minister, Hafiz Akhtar Ali, told this correspondent that he had mistakenly filed two nomination papers for PF 28 and one of them had been rejected.

There are 241 candidates who are running for three NA and eight PA seats. There are some independent candidates too but most of them are either ‘covering candidates’ or had randomly filed nomination papers.

A tough contest is expected between candidates of the Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League and PML (Nawaz) if it decides to take part in the elections. MMA candidates are also expected to perform well if it remains intact.

The constituency NA-9 (Mardan-I) has 362,042 votes, of which 158,451 are those of men, while the number of women voters stands at 103,591. In NA-10 (Mardan-II), there are 284,901 votes, of which 151,863 are those of men while 133,038 voters are women. NA-11 (Mardan-III) has 256,479 votes, of which women voters are 99,254 while men voters are 157,225.

It has been learnt that 213 polling stations (150 for men and 63 for women and 193 are combined) have been set up in NA 9. In NA 10, 223 polling stations had been set up out of which 13 are for women, 17 for men while 193 would be combined. In NA 11, there are 214 combined polling stations with a total of 555 polling booths. Of them, 334 booths were for men and 221 for women voters.

—Correspondent