MIRPURKHAS, Feb 17: It has been observed that sympathies of masses have increased for People’s Party candidates after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Umerkot district.

The district has one national assembly seat and three provincial assembly seats, with a total 3,52,188 registered voters.

For NA-228 seat, Nawab Yousuf Talpur of PPP, Pir Noor Mohammad Shah Jilani of PML-F, and PML-Q backed Qasim Siraj Soomro were the main contenders.

In 2002 election, Nawab Yousuf Talpur won this seat by securing over 58,000 votes while Kishanchand Parwani of the National Alliance was the runner-up with 48,000 votes.

Umerkot, Samaro, Kunri, parts of Pithoro, Dhoro Naro, Chhore and Khokhropar areas are included in this constituency.

A tough contest is expected between Nawab Yousuf Talpur and Qasim Siraj Soomro.For PS-68 Umerkot-I, PPP’s Nawab Taimoor Talpur and Dr Dost Mohammad Memon of PML-Q are the main contestants.

It is said that people of this constituency has sympathies with the PPP.

There are 108,294 voters in the constituency. Dr Dost Mohammad Memon bagged 15000 votes and won this seat in 2002 elections.

In PS-69 Umerkot-II, there are 1,15,656 voters while main contestants are Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah of PML-F and Ali Murad Rajar of PPP.

The areas included Pithoro, Dhoronaro and Samaro.

After Dec 27, incident a tough contest is expected on this seat. In 2002 election, Muzaffar Hussain Shah bagged 21,739 votes and won this seat from PPP candidate Syed Ali Mardan Shah with a margin of about three thousand votes.