LAHORE: The polling for 14 National Assembly and 30 Punjab Assembly seats was held on Thursday in the provincial metropolis amid strict security measures.
The polling process continued peacefully from 8 am to 5 pm without any interval across the provincial capital, and people of all ages actively participated in the election process to elect candidates of their choice. The voters in the polling station at 5 pm were permitted to cast their votes.
Polling started in some constituencies after an hour’s delay. The polling staffers were found untrained at some polling stations, which led to delays in the election process. At different polling stations in NA-125, 126, 118, and 130, voting was delayed for various reasons.
There were 12,164,417 registered voters in Lahore, out of which 3,636,253 were male and 3,221,841 were female. In total, 4,357 polling stations were set up in all the 14 National Assembly constituencies (NA-117 to NA-130) and respective constituencies of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab (PP-245 to PP-274).
Two former Prime Ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif, former speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, former Punjab CM Hamza Shehbaz and many other politicians were in the run. There were 266 candidates in the run for 14 NA seats from Lahore. Likewise, 813 candidates were in the run for 30 seats of the Punjab Assembly from Lahore. Of 4,354 polling stations, 1,120 were declared highly sensitive, and 3,107 sensitive.
Several polling stations in NA-130, where PML-N supremo Nawaz was in the run, started the polling process with representatives from only one party. In many stations, only the PML-N agents were present, while the representatives from the PTI-backed independents, PPP, JI and TLP, were absent.
Outside the Chishti High School, opposite the Baba Ground, there was no PTI polling camp; a PTI lady worker told the Business Recorder that they set up one, but the members of the PML-N, with the assistance of the police, forced them to leave the place. However, the political workers of other parties, including PML-N and PPP, said there was no such incident. “The polling has been peaceful, and a respectable turnout was seen,” they added.
The police denied this scribe entry into the Chishti High School lady polling station on the pretext that a senior official was visiting the polling station. Still, the media was permitted to enter the Government Graduate College polling station in the same constituency. The police personnel adopted a harsh attitude towards the press. It restricted their entry at some other polling stations.
The polling agents inside the polling station said the polling process was running smoothly, and no untoward incident was reported. A polling agent of the PTI said they faced no harassment and were expecting an average turnout. A presiding officer said the polling process had been peaceful, and he was expecting a turnout in the range of 45 percent.
However, in the afternoon, a rush was seen outside the Government Girls Elementary School polling station, People’s Park, and the PTI’s polling camp, which was the busiest. A PTI worker dealing with the voters said that people were pouring out to cast their vote, and he was optimistic that they would receive 70 to 80 percent of the votes.
Many voters were in queues to cast their votes inside the polling station. The presiding officer said there was a sudden surge of voters after 3 pm. “In the morning, the polling was slow, but it picked up momentum as the day progressed. Until 4 pm, the turnout was in the range of 40 percent, and I am expecting this number to be 50 percent after the polling ends,” he added.
A similar trend was seen in other polling stations where it was expected that the turnout would be in the range of 50 percent. The absence of mobile services throughout the day created problems for the voters to locate their polling stations. A PTI polling agent noted that no voter lists were provided to the polling agents stationed at the polling camps; only the polling agents inside the polling station were given one. “Since there was no mobile phone service, I could not issue chits bearing vote number and polling station number to voters and they were denied entry into the polling station,” he added.
In Icchra (NA 128), from where PTI-backed independent candidate Salman Akram Raja was running for the National Assembly seat, a large number of voters were seen rushing to a polling station as the polling time drew nearer.
In NA-125, from where PTI-backed independent Rana Javed Umer, PML-N’s Malik Afzal Khokhar and PPP’s Abdul Ghafoor Mayo were contesting, there were reports of violation of the Election Commission’s code of conduct.
The voters were seen at Raiwand’s polling stations taking pictures with their mobile phones after casting their votes. It is worth noting that the ECP had explicitly banned the possession of mobile phones within polling stations to maintain the integrity and secrecy of the voting process. The violation of the code of conduct has raised concerns about the sanctity of the electoral process in NA-125. Instances like these undermine the principles of fair and transparent elections that the election commission strives to uphold.
However, PPP senior leader Sherry Rehman Thursday visited the polling stations in NA-127 Lahore from where Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was contesting against PML-N’s Attaullah Tarar. During her visit to different polling stations, Sherry reviewed the preparations at the polling stations. On internet outages, she said, “We were told that internet and mobile phone services have been suspended temporarily. However, even after our demand to restore the services, the country was still witnessing the suspension of mobile phone services and internet outages.”
Meanwhile, to uphold the integrity and security of the electoral process, the District Returning Officer (DRO) and Deputy Commissioner (DC) Lahore Rafia Haider issued stringent directives to ensure the safekeeping of crucial surveillance data from sensitive polling stations.
Following the conclusion of vote counting and the return of polling materials, Haider instructed the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Security, District Monitoring Officer and the NRTC team to handle the transfer of CCTV camera records with utmost care. Emphasizing safeguarding this data, she mandated its transportation to the central control room for further scrutiny. A total of 65 NRTC teams, comprising 500 personnel, were deployed across the field in addition to the teams dispatched by the district monitoring officer.
The counting of votes was underway till the filing of this report. As per unofficial results, the PML-N candidates were leading the election race from Lahore.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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