ECP announces by-poll schedule for deposed PM’s constituency

Election in NA-120 will take place on September 17, says top electoral body

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced the schedule for by-polls in the constituency of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was disqualified by the Supreme Court on Friday for hiding assets in his nomination papers for the 2013 general elections.

According to the schedule released by the top electoral body, the election in NA-120 will take place on September 17. The candidates will be able to submit their nomination papers between August 10-12 and the ECP will review nomination papers between August 15-17.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will most likely announce Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who is a younger brother of the ousted PM, as its candidate for NA-120.



However, its arch rival opposition party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has already announced Dr Yasmin Rashid, the runner up candidate in the last election, as its candidate. In the 2013 general elections, Yasmin did not ruffle many feathers in the PML-N camp and only secured 52,354 compared to Nawaz’s 91,683.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has sought applications from intending candidates to field for the National Assembly constituency.

The registered number of female and male voters were 295,826 at that time with 166,714 representing the latter. The amount of people who turned up on election day to cast their ballot was 51.85% of the total registered.



In the general election of 2008, PML-N candidate Bilal Yaseen also took a comprehensive victory with 65,946 votes compared to his PPP opponent Jahangir Badar who had secured just 24,380 votes. At that time, the registered voters in the constituency were 268,552 and just 36.28 percent of them turned up on the day of the polls.

According to data freshly updated by the Election Commission of Punjab in June 2017, the number of registered voters had reached 321,568 out of which 179,464 were men and 142,104 were women.