PESHAWAR: Elections for 11 vacant seats of the Senate in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly will be held today, Monday.
The 11 seats include seven general seats, two seats reserved for technocrats, and two reserved for women. The names of a total of 25 candidates were finalised, but some of the candidates withdrew later after 12 PM Sunday, and only 14 contesting candidates remained for the senate election.
All arrangements have been completed for the elections to 11 vacant Senate seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while the polling process will begin at 11 am today Monday. The Election Commission has declared the Jirga Hall of the Provincial Assembly as a polling station for polling, where two polling booths have been set up. According to the list released by the commission, 25 candidates were in the field for 11 seats, including 16 for 7 general seats, 5 for two technocrat seats and 4 for two women’s seats.
However, most of the candidates have already withdrawn, and their names will not be included on the ballot papers. According to the Election Commission, the names of the candidates who withdrew after noon on Sunday will be present on the ballot papers, but the word “retired” will be stamped in front of them. In the election race, the distribution of seats has been decided between the government and the opposition under the uncontested formula, under which the opposition has been given five seats and the government has been given six seats.
The government candidates for the general seats include Murad Saeed, Faisal Javed, Mirza Afridi and Noor-ul-Haq Qadri, while the opposition candidates include Maulana Atta-ul-Haq Darwish (JUI), Talha Mahmood (Peoples Party) and Niaz Ahmed (PML-N). PTI’s disgruntled candidate Khurram Zeeshan has not withdrawn his papers, while the names of other disgruntled candidates Irfan Saleem, Waqas Orakzai and others will be included as “retired” on the ballot papers. On the women’s seats, there will be a contest between PPP’s Rubina Khalid, PTI’s Rubina Naz and Mehwish Ali, while the name of disgruntled candidate Ayesha Bano is also on the ballot papers. The technocrat seats are contested by Azam Swati (PTI), Dilawar Khan (JUI) and three disgruntled candidates, Syed Irshad Hussain, Khalid Masood and Waqar Ahmed Qazi.
On the other hand, the Election Commission has imposed a ban on media coverage due to security reasons. The Assembly Secretariat confirmed the ban and said that media representatives have been stopped at the Assembly gate itself, where several media teams are present.
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