Polling for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly seat PK-8 is underway Thursday after it was vacated after the death of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) MPA Arbab Akbar Hayat.
The voting started at 8pm and will continue till 5 pm. Police and army personnel are guarding total 98 polling stations formed in the constituency.
Security concerns loom over the by-election as 40 polling centres were declared extremely sensitive, 47, sensitive and 11 were declared normal. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Shehzad Khan, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam’s (JUI) Asif Iqbal, Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Malik Tehmash and Awami National Party’s (ANP) Ejaz Samyab among 15 contestants.
PTI, JUI, and PPP are likely to line by one another in the results with close margins.
The number of registered voters in PK-8 is over 1.36 lac, however, turnout is dismal in the early hours. Media are permitted limited coverage of the by-election.
It should be noted here that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf will manage a ‘clean sweep’ in Peshawar if Shehzad Khan wins the seat. Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) and Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) had withdrawn in favour of PTI earlier.
