Voting underway in Umerkot's PS-52 by-elections

UMERKOT: Voting is underway on Monday for by-elections on Umerkot’s PS-52 provincial assembly seat as overall 12 candidates are taking part in the electoral contest, ARY News reported.

A tough fight is expected between Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) candidate Amir Ali Shah and Grand Arbab Ghulam Rahim of Democratic Alliance (GDA). The seat fell vacant after the death of the PPP Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) Ali Mardan Shah.

The voting will be continued till 5:00 pm at 128 polling stations established for the by-elections today while the total number of registered voters in the constituency is 154,187.

CCTV cameras have been installed in very sensitive polling stations and Rangers personnel were deployed outside the polling stations today.

Read: Balochistan govt wants ECP to postpone PB-20 Pishin by-election

Yesterday, 53 presiding officers had been removed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) over the request of GDA candidate who complained about the association of POs with a political party.

In December last year, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had taken a decision to hold by-elections on all the vacant seats across the country.

The seats include two of the national assembly (NA-75, Sialkot and NA-45 Orakzai) and six of the provincial assemblies (PS-43 Sanghar, PS-88 Malir, PB-20 Pishin, PS-52 Umerkot, PK-63 Nowshera, and PS-88 Gujranwala.

The election commission had also decided earlier on January 9 to deploy army troops outside polling stations during the forthcoming by-elections on overall eight vacant seats of national and provincial constituencies.