KARACHI: The by-election on a National Assembly seat and a Sindh Assembly seat is scheduled to be held on Sunday (today).

The National Assembly seat NA-247 was won by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Arif Alvi in the general election on July 25. He vacated the seat after he was elected the country’s president.

The PTI has fielded Aftab Hussain Siddiqui as its candidate who would be contesting against a dozen candidates, including Pakistan Peoples Party’s Qaiser Nizamani, a known artist, and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s Sadiq Iftikhar. Pak Sarzameen Party has fielded Karachi deputy mayor Arshad Vohra.

Mr Alvi had got over 91,000 votes — over 65,000 votes more than the runner-up — against the candidates of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), MQM-P and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal who got 24,680, 24,146 and 22,780 votes, respectively. MQM-P’s heavyweight candidate Dr Farooq Sattar came third after TLP’s Zaman Ali Jafery. The constituency comprises areas of Defence, Clifton, Old City area, Kharadar, Ranchhore Line, etc.

PS-111

The PS-111 seat was vacated by PTI’s Imran Ismail who was appointed as the governor of Sindh. Fifteen candidates have filed their nomination papers including PTI’s Shehzad Qureshi, PPP’s Fayaz Pirzada and MQM-P’s Jahanzaib Mughal.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2018