Polling under way in Islamabad LG elections

The PTI also accused the election commission of announcing delimitation at the last minute giving an edge to the PML -N by increasing the number of union councils to 32 in rural areas where it had won the National Assembly seat while decreasing to 23 the number of councils in the constituency in which PTI’s Asad Umar was elected. They criticised the ECP of treating the candidates of ruling PML-N as VVIPs, saying under which rule, Shah was allowed to cast his vote as he had no original CNIC. A spokesperson of the district administration told The Express Tribune on Monday that 602 candidates were contesting elections in 109 wards in five municipal committees.

Polling began at 7:00 in the morning and concluded at 5:30 in the evening. The ECP rejected calls by some political parties to extend the polling time, saying that those who were inside the premises of polling stations will be allowed to cast their votes. A great enthusiasm was witnessed especially in the rural areas of the capital territory where men and women voters queued up outside the polling stations to cast their vote.

He also visited women polling stations and showed satisfaction over the entire polling process in the city.

No major incident, however, took place across Islamabad during the polling time.

A total number of 6,80,612 registered voters will exercise their right to vote in LB elections in the federal capital out of which 3,67,960 are male voters and 3,12,652 female voters.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has chose to deploy armed forces personnel and rangers for the security of the local government (LG) elections in the third phase of Punjab on December 5.

The PML-N has fielded 506 candidates while the PTI has fielded 479 and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) has fielded 164.

Voters have turned up in large numbers at the polling stations to use their right of franchise.

The Election Commission had set up a control room to receive complaints of the people.

The interior ministry had issued a notification that all government offices and the ministries will be closed at 2pm.