QUETTA: Voters belonging to 72 tribes will cast their vote on May 11 at polling stations to be setup for elections for NA-260 Quetta-Chagai seat.
Official sources in the Provincial Election Commission Balochistan told APP here on Tuesday that 60 candidates have been participating in general elections for the NA-260 Quetta-Chagai constituency who belonged to different political parties including Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-N, Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), National Party (NP), JUI-N, Hazara Democratic Party (HDP), Pashtoonkhawa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP), Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP), Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan Terhik-i-Insaf (PTI), Awami National Party (ANP), Awami Muslim League (AML), PML-Z and others.
They said the NA-260 Quetta-Chagai has 429778 registered voters including 259307 male voters and 170474 female voters while about 518 polling stations have been designed for this constituency.
They further said that NA-260 Quetta-Chagai, the largest electoral constituency of Pakistan is spread in 700 kilometers and bordering with Iran and Afghanistan.
Political sources told this scribe that former federal minister Sardar Omar Gorgaij who is also contesting elections in this constituency will have to face strong candidates fielded by BNP-M and JUI-F and PML-N.
BNP-M candidate Agha Hassan Advocate and JUI-F candidate Manzoor Mengal are also being taken as strong candidates, however, NP candidate Mir Muhammad Yousuf Notezai will also get remarkable number of votes.
PML-N fielded Sardar Najib Sanjgrani who has his political and tribal influence due to presence of Sanjrani tribe in Chagai district.
Political observers said that JUI-N candidate Hafiz Fazl Baraich, PKMAP candidate Abdul Rahim Mandokhel and HDP candidate Muhammad Raza have their vote bank in Quetta and they would not be able to defeat rival candidates in polling stations in Chagai. JWP candidate Nawabzada Talal Akbar Bugti is also participating in elections from this national assembly seat.
The candidate of Mutahida Qaumi Movement Pir Bakhsh Samalani, PTI candidate Pervez Iqbal, JI candidate Akhtar Muhammad, AML candidate Abdul Qadir, APML candidate Faizullah Bazai and PML-Z candidate Mir Zarak Zehri have also been approaching voters in this constituency.
"When we viewed the political history of this electoral constituency, the candidates belonging to Chagai used to win elections for this seat and candidates hailing from Quetta get second or third position.
Keeping in view this history and personal tribal influence of the candidates, we can say that tug of war will be between Sardar Omar Gorgaij, Mir Muhammad Yousuf Notezai and Sardar Najib Sanjrani".
However, Agha Hassan Advocate of BNP-M is also being taken as strong candidate due to political influence of BNP-M chief Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal and presence of Baloch nationalist voters in this constituency while JUI-F has also been enjoying support of its religious vote bank as it is running several religious seminaries in this region.
It is also being mentioned here that some banned organizations have given one week call of wheel jam in Baloch belt areas for period from May 5 to 11.
The EC Balochistan sources said that they had finalized plan with collaboration of provincial government to keep army standby and deploy heavy contingents of law enforcement agencies including Frontier Corps, Police, Levies Force and Balochistan Constabulary in sensitive districts during polling to avoid any untoward incident.
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