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- April 21, 2024
- Kainat Shakeel
- 0
The federal government has put in place stringent security measures for the 21 national and provincial assembly seats where by-elections are taking place on Sunday. The Pakistan Army and civil defense forces were allowed to be deployed during the voting process by the government. On election day, second and third-tier security will be provided by the army and the civil defense, respectively. An announcement states that from April 20 to 22, army and civil defense units will be present in 21 constituencies.
The Interior Ministry issued these directives with federal government approval. Voting started at 8 a.m. and will run nonstop until 5 p.m. There are 174 contenders in Punjab and 49 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa competing for the same spots. Punjab has a voter registration rate of 18.67 million women and 21.77 million men, both of whom will use their political rights. In the meantime, 1.471 million voters in K-P are eligible to vote in the by-elections. There will be a total of 892 voting stations set up in K-P, with 663 male, 649 female, and 1289 joint polling stations located in Punjab.
There are 4.239 million eligible voters in Sindh’s NA-196 National Assembly seat. This seat will have 933 voting places and will see five candidates run. In two provincial constituencies in Balochistan, 125 polling places have been set up, accommodating 163,000 people to cast ballots. To handle any issues, a control room has been established in the offices of the provincial election commissioners. Furthermore, the installation of CCTV cameras at polling places with sensitive information was finished.
Additionally, to facilitate the by-elections, the federal government has temporarily halted cellular service in certain areas in Punjab and Balochistan. Cellular services would be temporarily banned in certain regions of the two provinces for a period of two days, as per the directives of the interior minister, according to a statement released by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). The decision was made, the authority continued, to protect the election process’s security and integrity.