Oct 24 to be last day of campaign ahead of Peshawar’s NA-4 by-poll

PESHAWAR: In line with the scheduled by-poll in Peshawar’s NA-4 constituency on October 26, Tuesday is the last day for election campaign in the constituency.

The Peshawar deputy commissioner has declared October 26 a holiday to facilitate the public.

Meanwhile, the ECP has finalised arrangements for the by-election.

It will be the first time that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will be using electronic voting machines (EVMs) during the by-election. Out of the total 269 polling stations that will be set up for the by-poll, EVMs will be used in over 100 polling booths of 35 polling stations in both urban and rural areas of the constituency.

Around 47,255 voters will be facilitated via EVMs to cast their votes in addition to the manual voting process.

The constituency comprises of 397,904 registered voters of which 235,164 are male and 162,740 female.

A total of six people belonging to political parties and nine independents are competing for the MNA seat.

The PTI’s Arbab Amir Ayub will be battling against PPP Asad Gulzar, late incumbent Gulzar Khan’s son, ANP’S Khushdil Khan, former deputy speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and the JI, Wisal Farooq. In addition, Musazai, supported by the JUI-F and the Qaumi Watan Party will be representing PML-N in the by-poll.

In addition, the newly formed but unregistered religious-political party, Milli Muslim League (MML) is supporting independent candidate Haji Liaquat Ali Khan in the race.

The seat fell vacant due to death of former MNA Gulzar Khan of the PTI in August this year. Khan had alienated himself from party leadership following differences on several issues, however, he chose to remain a member of the party.