Re-polling on PK-23 Shangla underway

PESHAWAR: Re-polling on a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seat, PK-23, Shangla, has been underway on Monday as thirteen assembly aspirants are running for the seat after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate Shaukat Yousafzai’s victory in the recent general elections was declared void owing to low female voters turnout.

The polling began at 8am and will continue till 6pm without any break.

Thirteen candidates are in the run for the seat. Prominent among them are PTI’s Yousafzai, MMA’s Muhammad Yaar, ANP’s Umer Zada and PPP’s Afsar-ul-Mulk.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has set up 135 polling stations across the constituency.

Former PTI minister and member provincial assembly Yousafzai had emerged victorious from the constituency with 17,933 votes defeating Mohammad Rishad of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) who got 15533 votes.

The victory notification of the PTI candidate was not issued after the July 25 general election because of low female voter turnout in the constituency. Only 3,500 of 86,698 women had cast their votes in the polls.

The ECP had decided to conduct a fresh round of polling in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) constituency. The decision to halt the notification was taken by a five-member bench of the ECP headed by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC).

According to the election rules, if among the total votes cast in a constituency, the share of women in the final count is less than 10%, the results of the polls may be declared void.