Over 9.9 million ballot papers printed for by-election

ISLAMABAD: Over 9.9 million ballot papers have been printed for by-polls scheduled for October 14.

More than a 100 candidates, including some political bigwigs, are contesting for 35 national and provincial assembly seats in the by-polls.

Seats up for grabs include 11 from National Assembly, 11 from Punjab Assembly, nine from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and two each from Sindh and Balochistan.

Over five million registered voters, about 2.3 million women and over 2.7 million men, will exercise their right to vote.

The campaign time for candidates’ ended Friday midnight as the election campaigning picked up pace this week.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), ballot papers have been handed over to the presiding officers. They were distributed under the supervision of the Pakistan Army.

Further, the ECP said, 641 candidates submitted papers for the by-polls. However, only 372 candidates will be contesting in the by-polls now.

In Lahore’s NA-131 constituency, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Khawaja Saad Rafique will face Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Humayun Akhtar.

Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is PML-N’s candidate from NA-124. His opponent in the constituency is PTI’s Ghulam Mohiuddin.

For Karachi’s NA-243 constituency, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) is expected to give tough competition to PTI.

Overseas Pakistanis will vote for the first time in the by-polls.

On Thursday, the ECP constituted 27 monitoring teams to monitor the by-polls.

The teams will examine the distribution of polling equipment and training of the polling staff. On the day of the by-polls, the teams will also monitor security arrangements, the result transmission system (RTS) and votes of the overseas Pakistanis in addition to the process of tabulation and compilation of results.