KARACHI: Between the tandoors, pakwan centres, parchun [retail store] shops, chicken shops and the fruit and vegetable carts, there was only the face of former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan and his election symbol, cricket bat, that played hide-and-seek in the shape of the many fresh PTI flyers and posters put up for the NA-239 by-election in areas such as Model Colony, Saudabad, Shah Faisal Colony and Al-Falah Housing Society, which come under the constituency.

It being a Sunday, many youngsters with cricket bats in hand, on way to their playgrounds with friends were also mistakenly assumed to be PTI workers but the reality was that very few in town were even aware that there was an election under way.

The turnout was very low despite the critical election said to be more akin to a ‘referendum’ as former prime minister Imran Khan was himself the candidate of the PTI against Nayyer Raza of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and others.

Like a mirage in a desert, a traffic jam a little ahead of Malir Garrison, made one automatically think of the by-elections as the reason for the jam. Many who turned to the service road to avoid the jam were then forced to stop at a tent covering the entire service road up ahead. That tent turned out to be a private event tent instead of a voter facilitation tent. And the jam ended at a wedding hall with a day-time wedding.

“There are 1,519 voters registered with us and so far only 150 have come to cast their vote,” said Dr Mohammed Zafar Iqbal, the presiding officer at polling station No 180 at Arman Public School in Model Colony.

Asking the few voters who they thought would take the seat from their area brought out a spontaneous reply in favour of PTI.

In the same school, presiding officer Mohammed Rizwan, informed that they had four polling booths upstairs for men and just as many polling booths for females downstairs but they were all sitting mostly idle even though polling was about to close soon. Looking around, one also noticed a few police officers who were half asleep.

There was more police stationed at the stations than the polling staff and in most cases, there was also more polling staff than the voters.

At Asif Government School in Kala Board, the turnout seemed somewhat better. Zohra Sultana, 87-year-old grandmother, motivated her entire family to cast their vote. She had arrived with her son, grandson, daughter-in-law and granddaughter to vote no matter who they voted for though everyone in that family was only looking forward to put their stamp on the bat.

Upon Dawn’s asking a senior election official about the low turnout of voters in the by-election, he claimed: “By-elections already generate low interest among voters.”

When reminded the importance of these by-elections, he added: “Perhaps it is so because we are also moving towards the end of the national assembly’s tenure so whoever gets a seat now will also not be there for long.”

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2022