PPP trounces GDA in Umerkot By-election

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has secured win against the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) in the by-polls for Umerkot’s PS-52 seat.

According to the details, Ameer Ali Shah of PPP emerged victorious according to the unofficial and unverified results.

Unofficial results of 128 polling stations showed that Shah secured over 58,968 votes against GDA’s Arbab Ghulam Rahim, who bagged nearly 30,832 votes.

The polling process started under the supervision of the police and Rangers, however, some incidents of minor clashes were reported and polling was suspended for some time, but again resumed.

Both candidates and their chief polling agents had visited different polling stations and accused each other of rigging in polling, The News reported Tuesday.

50 polling stations were declared highly sensitive. There are a total of 128 polling stations, out of which 40 are sensitive and 50 highly-sensitive.

The ECP official said that there are total 154,000 votes registered in PS-52, out of which more than 70,000 are female voters.

Regarding the election staff, the ECP officials said 128 presiding officers, 432 assistant presiding officers, 432 polling officers, and 1,421 policemen and rangers’ personnel have been deployed.

Furthermore CCTV cameras were installed with strict instructions that no one except a presiding officer can use a mobile phone.

In addition to this, the government had declared a public holiday in the constituency to facilitate the voters for casting their votes.