PESHAWAR: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has said it has finalised arrangements for by-election in the National Assembly’s constituency, NA-45 Kurram.

According to it, a total of 143 polling stations will be set up for the polls and 119 of them have been declared highly sensitive and the rest sensitive.

The ECP said it had planned foolproof security measures for Oct 30, the day of polling, to enable people to exercise their right to vote without fear.

According to a news release issued here, a high-level meeting was held here at the office of the provincial chief secretary, which was addressed by Provincial Election Commissioner Shamshad Khan.

Voting for NA-45 seat to be held on 30th

The meeting was attended by chief secretary Dr Shehzad Bangash, Inspector General of Police Moazam Jah Ansari, secretary of the local government department, additional secretary of the home department, a representative of the Peshawar 11 Corps, and other relevant officers.

The commissioner of Kohat division, district returning officer of NA-45, and deputy commissioner and district police officer of Kurram tribal district attended the meeting via a video link.

A detailed briefing was given to participants regarding security arrangements.

The officials said personnel of the police, Frontier Corps and Pakistan Army would perform security duty on Oct 30.

They said 119 polling stations had been declared highly sensitive and 24 sensitive and that close-circuit television cameras would installed there to monitor the situation.

The provincial election commissioner asked all officers to play their active role in holding free, fair and impartial election.

A total of 198,618 residents, including 111,349 men and 87,269 women, are eligible to vote.

Out of the total of 143 polling stations, 26 each will be exclusively set up for male and female voters, whereas 91 will be combined.

A total of 359 polling booths will be established in these polling stations, including 190 for men and 169 for women.

NA-45 Kurram was one of the four National Assembly constituencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where polling for the by-elections were scheduled to be held on Oct 16 but the ECP postponed it and fixed it for Oct 30.

In the other three-constituencies of NA-22 Mardan, NA-24 Charsadda and NA-31 Peshawar, former prime minister and chief of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Imran Khan had emerged victorious.

The candidates for NA-45 Kurram by-election include PTI chief Imran Khan, Jamil Khan of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Sher Mohammad Khan of the Jamaat-i-Islami , former MNA Fakhar Zaman, who had vacated the seat and is the covering candidate for Mr Imran, and independent candidates Mohammad Zahir Shah, Sarfaraz Khan, Abdul Khaliq, Shah Nawaz Khan, Khalilur Rehman, Abdul Qadir, Mohammad Shoaib, Sadiq Khan, Jahanzeb, Niaz Badshah, Eid Gul Mengal and Saifullah Khan.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2022