BAHAWALPUR, Jan 10: At least 226 polling stations (male and female) will be set up for the Jan 15 byelections on NA-187 (Bahawalpur five) seat.

The local deputy election commissioner said 226 presiding officers and 452 polling officers had been appointed for the purpose. A total 554 ballot boxes needed for the polling had been painted afresh, he said.

Dawn learnt that the number of voters in this constituency was 264,580, male 142,574 and female 122,006.

Five candidates — Syed Tasneem Nawaz Gardezi, Saood Majid Chaudhry, Sajjad Jathole (independents), Taj Muhammad Langah (PPP) and Shehbaz Bajwa (MMA) are in the race.

Taj Langah is the PPP ticket holder, but he is facing opposition from PPP workers and leaders in his election campaign. Since PPP leader and District Nazim Tariq Cheema is supporting Tasneem Gardezi, most of PPP workers and voters are opposing the PSP chief.

At a corner meeting in Yazman on Thursday, Mr Langah had severely criticized Tariq Cheema for his alleged deviation from the PPP line. He further alleged that the District Nazim was misusing official resources to win elections for Tasneem Gardezi.

Mr Langah said he had repeatedly informed the district returning officer, returning officer and the chief election commission about Cheema’s irregularities.

TARGET: A target to provide 15,000 new telephone connections has been fixed for the current year in the three districts of Bahawalpur.

This was stated by Bahawalpur region PTCL director Ibrahim Beg here on Friday.

He said at present 120,000 telephone connections were functioning in Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalnagar districts.

Nine auto-digital telephone exchanges had been installed in different areas while four new exchanges would be installed in due course, he added.