Over 900 in the run in cantt polls

Arrangements for local body elections, security completed in Punjab

LAHORE:

Local body elections of cantonment boards across Punjab will be held on Sunday with a large number of political and religious parties and independent candidates in the field.

All arrangements for the polling have been completed and the Election Commission has provided all the required material to the presiding officers. Police and Rangers will be on duty to maintain law and order.

Polling will be held for 42 cantonment boards from 8am to 5pm. As many as 923 candidates are contesting in the 119 wards.

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The Election Commission has set up 1,155 polling stations, of which 415 are for men, 404 for women and 335 joint. There will be 3,338 polling booths, including 1,603 for men and 1,735 for women.

The total number of registered voters in the cantonment areas in the province is 1,620,195, of whom 849,160 are men and 771,035 women.

A spirited election campaign was conducted by all the political parties in then cantonment areas across Punjab and multiple groups are claiming to be in a winning position in various constituencies.

Along with other districts of Punjab, a total of 270 candidates will contest for 20 seats in both the cantonment boards of Lahore.

Arrangements have been made for the 599,757 registered voters to exercise their right of vote in 357 polling stations in the provincial capital. The registered voters in Lahore and Walton cantonments include 280,541 women. The Election Commission has set up 1,082 polling booths in the city.

For the Lahore Cantonment Board elections, 121 polling stations have been set up by the Election Commission. There are 111 candidates in the run for 10 seats of Lahore Cantonment Board, of whom 66 belong to different political parties and 45 are independent.

The voters of Walton Cantonment Board will exercise their right of vote in 236 polling stations. A total of 159 candidates are contesting for 10 seats

The election results are expected by the night. The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have fielded candidates for all 20 cantonment board seats in the provincial capital. The PML-Q, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Jamaat-e-Islami, Tehreek-e-Labbaik and other parties have also nominated candidates.

The main contest appears to be between the largest ruling and opposition parties of the province.

Two candidates were elected unopposed in the province as no nomination papers were filed against them in their wards.

One candidate died before the polling, forcing the commission to postpone the elections.

There are four wards in the cantonment boards of the province where no candidate submitted nomination papers. The Election Commission will issue a schedule for re-election in such constituencies.

According to officials concerned, Punjab Election Commissioner Ghulam Israr Khan has formed monitoring teams across the province to ensure transparent elections and implementation of the code of conduct, who issued several notices over violations.

Officers posted at the district level and the provincial election commissioner will visit polling stations to review the polling process, the sources said.

In Attock’s Kamra Cantonment Board, no candidate has filed nomination papers in all four wards and as a result, polling will not take place there.

Election officials said the station house officers of police will be in charge of each polling station. Closed-circuit cameras have also been installed at all sensitive polling stations.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2021.