SWABI, March 28: In a majority of the 56 union councils in the Swabi district, where by-polls were held for vacant seats on Sunday, women voters were barred from exercising their right to vote.

In these union councils, a total of 174 seats of women are lying vacant. No women candidates had filed nomination papers to contest the by-polls for 36 vacant seats.

In some union councils, women could not cast their votes as the nazims had struck deals on the women seats with opponents to ensure that the candidates they supported returned unopposed, sources claimed.

Polling stations in a majority of these union councils wore a deserted look throughout the day. In some of the union councils, the families who intended to bring women to cast votes, were threatened with social boycott by those having stakes in the elections, the sources revealed, claiming that some women candidates who had filed nominations had been forced to withdraw their papers.