HYDERABAD - The polling process of the Local Government elections in the Cantonment Board of Hyderabad (CBH) will be held on Sunday.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has finalised all arrangements for the elections and the ECP also began distribution of the election material on Saturday morning under security of the district police. For some 10 wards in the CBH, 35 polling stations with 130 polling booths including 66 for male and 64 for female voters have been established. Some 48,965 people are registered to vote including 27,073 male and 21820 female voters. There are 3,556 registered voters in ward 1, 5,483 in ward 2, 3,341 in Ward, 3, 3,673 in ward 4, 7,121 in ward 5, 3,826 in ward 6, 6,500 in ward 7, 4,753 in ward 8, 6,610 in ward 9 and 3,930 in ward 10. The ward 5 is the biggest ward in terms of the registered votes and ward 3 the smallest one. As many as 54 candidates of 8 political parties besides 20 candidates contesting in the independent capacity are taking part in the elections. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have fielded candidates in all the 10 wards of the CBH. The three parties have also landed one woman candidate each in a ward.
Meanwhile, Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) has 8 candidates, Tehreek-e-Allah-o-Akbar (TAA) 7, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) 6, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) 2 and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) only one. Five of the independent candidates reportedly belong to the MQM-P restoration committee which is headed by Farooq Sattar. A total of 129 nomination papers were filed but the Returning Officer accepted 85 nominations and rejected 44. However, the appellate forums restored 16 of the rejected forms. But later 23 candidates withdrew from the elections and 4 others retired on Saturday.