Voting has begun in 65 tehsils of 18 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) for the second phase of local bodies’ (LBs) polls, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Thursday.

Districts of the province where polls are being held today are Orakzai, Kurram, North and South Waziristan, Abbottabad, Battagram, Mansehra, Torghar, Kohistan Upper, Kohistan Lower, Kolai Palis, Swat, Shangla, Malakand, Upper and Lower Dir, Malakand, Upper Chitral and Lower Chitral.   

29, 338 candidates belonging to different parties such as Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and others are contesting while total 6,176 polling stations and 16,509 polling booths have been set up for the purpose.  

There are 1, 830 union councils in these districts, while the number of registered voters are 80, 57, 474; 44, 89, 771 are males while 35, 67, 703 females. 

Tough contests are expected for the seat of City Mayor in Swat and Abbottabad.  

As many as 651 candidates are running for the seats of tehsil mayor and chairman, while 13, 331 are battling for the general seats. 

Similarly, 3, 201 female candidates are also contesting these elections. 

Just like other districts of KP, there is a lot of enthusiasm in voters in six tehsils of Dir Bala, where both old and young have turned up at the polling stations to cast their votes.  

Likewise, in Malakand too, there is a great enthusiasm in people, both men and women, who started queuing up outside the polling stations in the morning and their numbers are increasing as the day progresses. 

In order to further beef up security, 500 police personnel have been called in from Lower and Upper Dir.   

The situation is no different in four tehsils of district Abbottabad either as a large number of both male and female voters have already reached polling stations. 

Strict security arrangements have been put in place to ensure smooth polling while the election-related material such as ballot papers and polling bags and the polling staff had been dispatched to the concerned polling stations a day earlier on Wednesday because of remoteness of these areas and their location on mountainous areas.    

Special secretary, secretary election commission and the chief election commissioner have themselves supervised the arrangements. 

 

Reporters: Azmat Ali Shah, Dr Farooq Ahmad, Abdul Shaheed Piracha and Zubair Awan