KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan captured a provincial assembly constituency, PS-94 (Korangi-III), in a by-election held on Sunday.

According to unofficial results, MQM-P’s candidate Syed Hashim Raza emerged victorious by securing 21,130 votes in 147 of the 149 polling stations set up in the constituency. His closest rival, PTI’s Ashraf Qureshi, bagged 8,132 votes in the same number of polling stations.

The candidate of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM-Haqiqi), Amir Akhtar, got 5,806 votes; Pak Sarzameen Party’s Irfan Waheed (1,416 votes) and Pakistan Peoples Party candidate Javed Shaikh bagged 1,218 votes.

The voter turnout remained around 18pc.

The constituency fell vacant following the death of MQM-P MPA Muhammad Wajahat, who died of cancer on Nov 27, 2018. He had won the seat in the July 25, 2018 general elections by securing 32,729 votes followed by Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan’s Muhammad Shoaib-ur-Rehman (14,030 votes) and Muhammad Irfan of the PTI (13,638 votes).

Sixteen candidates were in the run for the PS-94 by-election and city’s major parties fielded their candidates.

Polling began at 8am in the constituency and continued without a break till 5pm. The electoral exercise remained peaceful and no untoward incident was reported from any part of the constituency.

In the beginning, the turnout remained low but it improved gradually on almost all 149 polling stations.

The contesting political parties appealed to the Election Commission of Pakistan to increase the voting time keeping in view the cold weather. However, the ECP did not accept the request.

Sindh’s Election Commissioner Muhammad Yusuf Khan Khattak also paid a visit to different polling stations and expressed his satisfaction over the arrangements made to ensure peaceful voting.

The number of registered voters in the constituency was 246,477, including 109,641 women voters.

Parties set up polling camps outside the polling stations to help those coming to exercise their right of franchise. Every voter was given entry to the polling station after checking of his/her computerised national identity card.

Officials said that over 1,200 policemen were posted in 149 polling stations set up in 57 buildings. All the polling stations were declared “most sensitive”. The internal security of the polling stations was the responsibility of the Rangers. Army troops were also put on alert.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2019