PESHAWAR: More than 2,000 candidates have withdrawn their nomination papers leaving 29,338 in the run for the upcoming second phase of local government elections to be held in 18 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on March 31.

According to the data of the Election Commission of Pakistan released on Monday, 2,186 candidates have taken their nomination papers back from the relevant returning officers.

A total of 851 candidates had filed nomination papers for contesting elections for the seat of mayor and chairman of city and tehsil councils and 200 of them withdrew those papers.

Similarly, 14,743 candidates had filed nomination papers to contest elections for the seat of general councillors in the village and neighbourhood councils and 1,412 of them withdrew papers.

A total of 3,297 women had filed nominations for the VCNC councillor seats reserved for them and 96 women took papers back.

For the seats of peasants and workers at VCNC level, 6,884 candidates had filed nomination papers and 282 of them withdrew candidature. Also, 190 of 5,636 candidates for youth seats withdrew nominations.

Out of 113 candidates for minority seats, six took their nomination papers back.

Meanwhile, Mansehra district returning officer Hayatullah Jan on Monday served a notice on minister for railways Mohammad Azam Khan Swati for violating the code of conduct for the second phase of local body elections.

The notice read, “It has been reported by monitoring team Mansehra and I (DRO) also know through social/print media that you are running election campaign for Kamal Saleem Swati, contesting candidate of PTI chairman seat of tehsil council Mansehra. You (Azam Swati) are therefore under sub-section 3 of Section 234 of Election Act 2017 called upon to appear in person or through counsel to explain your position on March 10 before the undersign (DMO).” According to the code of conduct for elections, the executive authorities in the federation and in the provinces and elected representatives of national and provincial assemblies shall neither use state resources in any constituency where election is being held for unfair advantage of a particular candidate or political party nor exercise undue influence affecting the interest of a candidate or party for participating in any election.

Also, Mansehra DRO Hayatullah Jan stopped the Pesco executive engineer (development) and sub-division officer from carrying out construction activities in the district until the elections are held.

The electoral exercise will take place in Abbottabad, Mansehra, Battagram, Torghar, Upper and Lower Kohistan, Kolai-Palas, Swat, Malakand, Shangla, Lower and Upper Dir, Upper and Lower Chitral, Kurram, Orakzai, and North and South Waziristan districts.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2022