MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan: Polling for the 10th general elections on 41 seats of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly concluded on Thursday evening.
The polling process continued from 08:00 am till 5:00 pm without any break.
The AJK Election Commission had made necessary arrangements to conduct the elections in a free, fair and transparent manner.
Around 423 candidates took in the election while over 2.6 million voters of 29 constituencies of AJK and 12 reserved seats for refugees of Jammu Kashmir settled in Pakistan exercised their right to franchise.
Special security arrangements had been made by deploying 36,000 personnel of Army, Rangers, Frontier Constabulary (FC) and Police to maintain law and order.
During the election, the AJK Chief Election Commissioner Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mughal visited various polling stations in Muzaffarabad city.
Talking to media on the occasion, he said that no complaint of any mishap or violence was received from any constituency.
The AJK Chief Election Commissioner thanked the federal government, Pakistan Army and the state administration for extending full support and cooperation for smooth conduct of the election process.
The Chief Election Commissioner also visited polling stations in Rawalakot and Mirpur districts.
Meanwhile, polling was also held in Rawalpindi Division and the Federal Capital for three Kashmiri refugees seats of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly.
Over 44,000 Kashmiri refugees exercised their vote in Rawalpindi, Chakwal, Jhelum, Attock, Murree, Hassanabdal, Taxila, Gujar Khan, Sohawa, Pind Dadan Khan, Dina and Islamabad to elect three representatives out of nine candidates from Jammu-6, Valley-4 and Valley-5 constituencies.
The Election Commission had declared over a dozen polling stations highly sensitive and elaborate security arrangements had been made to avoid any untoward incident.
The main contest was among four major political parties including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference.
