LAHORE: The polling in the by-elections of NA 69 Khushab and PK-50 Haripur was held on Thursday which continued till 5pm without any interval, while elaborate security arrangements had been made to ensure security and avoid any untoward incident during the polling.
A total of 298 polling stations were established in Punjab’s NA-69 Khushab constituency which had 337,645 registered voters. In the constituency, 49 of 298 polling stations were declared highly sensitive.
Likewise, 116 polling stations were established in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s PK- 50 Haripur constituency which had 153,374 registered voters. In the constituency, 75 polling stations were declared sensitive and 5 most sensitive.
Three candidates were in the run for NA-69 Khushab including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Aziz Khan and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Umer Aslam Awan. On the other hand, in PK-50, PTI’s Akbar Ayub Khan and PML-N’s Qazi Asad were contesting.
In the May 2013 general elections, the PML-N’s Sumera Malik won the seat of NA-69 with record 118,108 votes defeating the PTI’s Umer Aslam Awan who got 79,855 votes.
After 2013 election, Sumera Malik was disqualified by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Umer Aslam Awan’s petition and she then decided to field her son for the January 23 by-poll.
Similarly in PK-50, the seat fell vacant after PTI’s elected MPA Yousaf Ayub Khan was disqualified by an election tribunal in September 2013 over the submission of a fake graduation degree in the previous election, and subsequently the apex court also upheld his disqualification.
