NA-249 by-poll: Voting underway for crucial Karachi seat

Polling for the by-election for National Assembly constituency NA-249- Karachi West-II is currently underway.

According to the details, the polling started at 8 am and will continue till 5 pm without any break.

Sindh government has announced a public holiday, today (Thursday) in NA-249 Karachi constituency due to by-election.

Who are contesting in elections?

Amjad Afridi of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Miftah Ismail of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Qadir Khan Madokhel of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Mustafa Kamal of Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), and Mohammad Mursaleen of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) are among the 30 candidates taking part in the election in the constituency.

Registered Voters

The number of registered voters in the constituency is 339,591 out of which 201,656 are male and 137,935 are female voters who will exercise their right of the vote today.

NA-249

The NA-249 seat had fallen vacant after Faisal Vawda of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) resigned from the National Assembly for his Senate seat.

Presiding officers had been directed that pictures of Form-45 be sent to returning officers in presence of polling agents of contesting candidates.

COVID-19 SOPs

In the wake of rising COVID-19 cases, the ECP has asked the Karachi administration to appoint healthcare staff during the NA-249 by-election in order to effectively implement COVID SOPs during the polling process.

COVID-19 Situation in Pakistan

Pakistan has recorded 151 more deaths related to the novel coronavirus in a single day, taking the nationwide tally of fatalities to 17,680.

According to the latest figures issued by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), 5,480 persons were tested positive for COVID-19 for the same period, pushing the number of positive cases to 815,711.

As many as 57,013 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours out of which 5, 480 persons were tested positive for the disease. Overall 11,739,027 tests have been conducted so far to detect the deadly virus. The positivity ratio was recorded at 9.61 percent during the last 24 hours.