GUJRAT: PML-N Union Council (UC) Chairman Aqeel Abbas Shah has announced supporting Moonis Elahi in by-polls for NA-69.

The Moinuddinpur UC chairman from the Talib Shah Group has always been anti-Chaudhry since 1970. Earlier, they have been associated with PPP’s Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar as well as the Nawabzada family (now of the PML-N).

The group announced supporting Mr Elahi, joint candidate of the PML-Q and PTI, at a gathering. PML-N candidate Imran Zafar is running a lukewarm electioneering in rural areas because of lackluster work by the local party cadre. The PML-N also failed to get support of the Gujrat PPP chapter, even though the PPP has announced supporting the PML-N in by-polls.

A PML-N delegation, led by Gujrat Municipal Corporation mayor Nasir Mehmood, also called on Tahir Zaman Kaira, the former Gujrat PPP president, in Lalamusa seeking his support for the PML-N. PPP candidates in the July 25 elections for NA-69 and PP-111 Wazirunnisa Chaudhry and Rizwan Dildar as well as groups of Ahmed Mukhtar and Samina Pagganwala have not yet taken any interest to support the PML-N candidate.

Also, up to 96 polling stations have been declared highly sensitive and 94 others sensitive in the by-poll for NA-69. These stations would be manned by armed forces. The number of C category polling stations is 184.

The Gujrat district election commissioner told Dawn on Monday though the Election Commission of Pakistan had announced the deployment of troops for by-elections from Oct 12 to 15, the number of soldiers to be deployed on each polling station had yet to be decided. Troopers will be deployed in and outside stations.

There will 380 polling stations in the constituency, of them 107 are for males, 104 female and 169 will be joint polling stations. Registered voters are 469,177 and 2,266 polling staffers will perform duty on the polling day.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2018