Farid Shinwari
PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf retains NA-04 seat vacated after the death of its party’s MNA Gulzar Khan.
According to unofficial and unverified results, the PTI candidate Arbab Amir Ayub secured over 42,277 votes followed by PML-N Nasir Khan Musazai who got 22,778, ANP Khushdi Khan 22,000, PPP Asad Gulzar 12,000.
The NA-04 seat fell vacant after the death of disgruntled PTI MNA Gulzar Khan on August 28. After his death, his son Asad Gulzar joined Pakistan People’s Party. The observers had predicted neck and neck competition among PTI, PML-N and ANP contenders. While several analysts had termed the by-polls as test case for performance of PTI led KP government in the province.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan in his message on twitter congratulated the party workers on retaining the seat. “Congratulations to PTI’s victorious Arbab Amir in NA 4 and to the PTI Peshawar team. This was a victory against combined opposition forces,” Imran tweeted.
The Election Commission of Pakistan had established 269 polling stations in constituency for 397,952 voters, including 235,127 men and 162,825 women. It also declared 182 polling stations as most sensitive and 82 sensitive in light of security situation.
The polling started at 8 am and continued till 5 pm. Media was not allowed to enter the polling stations and strict security measures were taken with Army Jawans also on duty.
In all the polling process remained peaceful part from few scuffles and verbal clashes between the workers of PML-N and PTI. According to police persons, dozens of activists of political parties were taken into custody for displaying arms outside the polling stations and they violated the rules of regulations of Election Commission of Pakistan.
Activists of PTI, PML-N and ANP scuffled wi-th each others at different are-as of the constituency and ch-anted slogans against parties. In 2013, the PTI had sealed the NA-04 seat by with the of 34,723 votes and its candidate Gulzar Khan had secured 55,134 votes followed by Nasir Khan Mosazai of the PML-N, who got 20,412. While the contender of Jamaat-e-Islami Sabir Hussain Awan who got 16,493 votes with third position.
As electronic machines in around 100 polling booths and 35 polling stations would be used to experiment in the NA-04 election, ECP added. The ECP had appointed 269 presiding officers and made functional results transmission system at each polling stations.
A total of 14 aspirants among them Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Awami National Party, Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan Peoples Party, Milli Muslim League and other independent candidates contested the NA-04 by-election, said ECP. The electioneering had ended at midnight on Tuesday after all candidates including independents worked hard to motivate voters.
Several camps had been set up outside the polling stations by political parties to attract and educate their voters to cast their votes in favor of candidate. Also on Wednesday, the ECP director general administration and provincial election commissioner visited polling stations in the area to check preparations for the by-election.
The ECP empowered all presiding officers to exercise the powers of first class magistrate to prevent any untoward incident. Police officials ensured peaceful environment outside the polling stations and did not any one to take law into their hands. They informed that 5,000 policemen and 1,700 army personnel had been deployed and strict security arrangements had been ensured in NA-04 to avoid any untoward incident.
Earlier, the Peshawar deputy commissioner had announced banning showing arms and ammunition in premises of polling stations along with plying of unregistered and applied for vehicles in the constituency for a month of period. The district administration had announced a public holiday in the constituency on polling day.
