PESHAWAR: The polling has begun for the vacant local government seats in Mathra tehsil of Peshawar and Havelian tehsil of Abbottabad in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Six candidates are in the run for the slot of the chairmanship of Mathra tehsil. The polling started at 8 AM and will continue till 5 PM without any interval.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the total number of voters in the constituency is 218,630 which includes 120,738 male voters and 97,892 women voters.
A total of 155 polling stations have been set up in Mathra tehsil, 496 presiding officers have been assigned duties for the election, and district returning and returning officers have been assigned the powers of magistrates.
Rafiullah from the JUI-F, Inamullah from the PTI, Iftikhar Ahmed from the JI, Aziz Ghaffar Khan from the ANP, Ali Abbas Khan from the PPP and Fazlullah from the PML-N are in the field. The seat fell vacant after the death of Tehsil Mathra chairman Faridullah of JUI-F.
In Havelian, a close contest is expected between PML-N’s Malik Talha and PTI’s Iftikhar Khan for the slot of tehsil chairman. Independent candidate Uzair Sher is also a strong candidate. The seat fell vacant after the murder of Atif Munsif.
Abbottabad’s Havelian tehsil consists of nine union councils and 34 village councils. The total number of voters is 165,800 with 88,364 male voters and 77,436 female voters.
The election commission has set up 134 polling stations and 34 of them have been declared sensitive. As many as 2,071 police personnel have been deployed for polling duty.
JUI-F Faridullah Khan won the election with 22,000 votes. Iftikhar Ahmed of the JI secured 15, 844 votes followed by Ali Abbas Khan of the PPP who bagged 9, 835 votes.
