Rawalpindi begins poll preparations

The district election commission and the district administration have started preparations for the general elections to be held on February 8 next year.

Due to the recruitment of returning officers from the district administration, the Deputy Commissioner and the District Election Commissioner have sought the lists of employees for election duty from all the departments. The final list will be sent to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by Monday the next week.

Rawalpindi Deputy Commissioner Hasan Waqar Cheema has urgently sought the lists of officers and grade-IV employees of the departments of education, health, finance, local government, commissioner, deputy commissioner and assistant commissioners.

On the other hand, the number of votes in the new voter list for the upcoming general elections of six national and 12 provincial assembly seats of the Rawalpindi district has witnessed a record increase.

In Rawalpindi district, the number of new votes has increased to 3,307,083, including 1,703,511 male and 1,603,572 female votes. Whereas in the last 2018 general elections, the total number of votes in the Rawalpindi district was 3,121,416, including 1,644,498 male and 1,476,918 female votes.

Read: Polls on time

At that time the new district of Murree was also included in the Rawalpindi district. However, this time the votes of District Murree have been separated. The total votes for the national and provincial seats of Murree are 2,090,931, including 152,470 male and 138,461 female votes.

The total votes for the three National Assembly seats of Islamabad increased to 984,477, including 518,193 male and 466,284 female votes while the total votes of Islamabad district in the 2018 general elections were 762,935, which included 406,271 male and 356,664 female votes.

The total votes of the two NA seats of the Attock district have increased to 1,298,866 of which 675,066 are male and 623,800 are female votes. The total votes of two seats of district Jhelum are 1,016,270, which includes 524,791 male and 491,479 female votes.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2023.