DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Voting in the PK-68 Dera Ismail Khan by-elections ended here on Monday afternoon and the authorities started counting in the presence of the polling agents of the candidates.
The voting started at 8am and continued till 5pm. With a total of 127,617 voters registered in the constituency, 108 polling stations have been set up. Thirty-one of these stations have been declared “highly sensitive” while 29 have been declared “sensitive”.
Polling was relatively peaceful and there had been minor scuffle of supporters of political rivals at some constituencies. Strict security arrangements have been made to avoid any untoward incident and there is an official holiday throughout the district. Thirteen candidates took part in the by-election.
The by-election is likely to be a two-horse race between independent Makhdom Mureed Kazim Shah and PTI’s Ehtesham Javed Akbar.
PK-68 fell vacant on December 12, 2013 when election tribunal judge Yahya Zahid Gilani disqualified independent candidate Javed Akbar Khan for submitting a fake degree and ordered a re-election.
Akbar had won the seat in the general elections of 2013 by obtaining 41,349 votes. In the 2013 elections, voter turnout was 66.44% and Javed won by a margin of over 10,000 votes.
