ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: A total of 3,21,786 registered voters including 1,79,642 males and 1,42,144 females will decide on Sunday who replaces the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from NA-120 Lahore-III Constituency as member of National Assembly till 2018 general elections.
The by-election in NA-120 will take place on Sunday (September 17) in which Pakistan Muslim League’s Nawaz (PML-N) Begum Kalsoom Nawaz, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Dr Yasmeen Rashid and Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Faisal Mir are running as major contenders among 44 candidates including 32 independents.
The national assembly seat from NA-120 fell vacant after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) de-seated Nawaz Sharif on July 28 as per the directives of Supreme Court of Pakistan which in its landmark decision in Panama Papers Case disqualified the then prime minister.
Meanwhile, all arrangements have been finalized by the ECP to hold by-poll in NA-120 in a free, fair, transparent and peaceful manner.
There are a total of total 3,21,786 registered voters out of which 1,79,642 are male while 1,42,144 are female voters, an official of the ECP said.
The ECP’s official said that a total of 220 polling stations including 103 male, 98 female and 19 combined polling station have been set up for NA-120 by-election. Likewise, a total of 573 polling booths 312 male and 261 female pooling booths have been set up by the ECP, the official said.
The official said that 220 Presiding Officer, 573 Assistant Presiding Officers and 573 Polling Officers will discharge their duties on the polling day.
The official of the ECP further said that seven monitoring teams have been constituted with 20 officials from Islamabad and four provinces for by-election. He said that these well-equipped teams with having cameras, transport and supporting staff will start their duties from Saturday evening.
In addition, he said that these teams will monitor the observance of code of conduct and performance of biometric machines and send report to the ECP.
The official said that these teams will also immediate report to Returning Officer (RO) concerned, District Returning Officer, Provincial Election Commissioner Punjab, Central Monitoring Committee Islamabad and the ECP in case of violation of code of conduct in the constituency through telephone, fax, whatsapp or email. He said that on receiving any such report from the team, the commission will take action.
The ECP’s official said that senior officials of ECP’s IT wing are also included in these teams, who will examine the performance and other aspects of BVM machines on technical grounds and send report to the ECP.
The official said that the commission was already strictly monitoring the code of conduct for by-election and never allow any candidate or political party to violate code of conduct.
Furthermore, he said that the ECP has already served a notice to the federal and provincial ministers and directed them not to participate in political activities otherwise strict legal action will be taken against them.
