Over 8.5m Pakistanis cast vote in by-polls

Around 8.5 million registered voters, in an electoral process organized by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), are scheduled to cast their votes in 41 constituencies of Pakistan in by-polls on Thursday. The polling at all stations across Pakistan started at 8:00 a.m. and would continue till 5:00 p.m. local time. According to the ECP, 201 candidates are contesting for 15 National assembly seats, where 321 candidates are contesting for 26 Provincial Assemblies in all four provinces across Pakistan. Around 180 candidates are contesting for 15 seats of Punjab province, 82 candidates for four Sindh province constituencies, 27 candidates for four seats of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and 32 candidates are contesting for four Balochistan province districts. The Election Commission had set up over 7,000 polling stations across the country, out of which 1,800 have been declared "sensitive" and 1,500 as "highly sensitive" polling stations. Army troops have been deployed in and outside all the sensitive polling stations with the officers being given the powers of the first-class magistrate under which they could arrest or punish any troublemakers trying to interfere with smooth polling. The Presiding Officers have also been given the powers of first-class magistrate by the ECP to ensure free and fair polling. The newly appointed acting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani, is supervising all the electoral process as the former CEC Justice (ret.) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim had resigned from his post on July 31st. The ECP has also set up a complaint center for voters across the country in case they want to register any complaint of rigging.