As many as 56 candidates have withdrawn their nomination papers from two national and five provincial assemblies constituencies of Abbottabad district. Most of the candidates who opted to withdraw were from lawyers community while some of others were affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami which has decided to boycott the elections.
Returning officers have also allotted symbols to the independent candidates. Five candidates have withdrawn their nomination papers from NA-17 Abbottabad-1 including Ali Afzal Khan Jadoon, Shamaroz Khan Jadoon, Habib-ur- Rehman, Saeed Ahmed and Ghazanfar Ali Abbassi. Similarly eight candidates have withdrawn their nomination papers from national assembly constituency NA-18 Abbottabad- 11 including Sardar Gul Khatab, Sardar Sher Bahadur Khan, Waheed Akhtar, Sardar Muhammad Idrees, Ijaz Zar Khan Jadoon, Shoukat Ali Tanoli, Tahir Javed Abbassi and Khurshid Azam.
Seven candidates from Provincial assembly constituency PF-44 have withdrawn their nomination papers including Jehanzeb Khan, Sardar Zakir Hussain, Q zi Muhammad Arshad Advocate, Ghulam Mustafa Hussain Qureshi, Raja Aurangzeb Khan, Gul Khan and Malik Abdul Farooq, while eight candidates have withdrawn their nomination papers from PF-45 including Habib-ur-rehman Abbassi Advocate, Saeed Ahmed Abbassi , Ghazanfar Ali Abbassi, Muhammad Akram Abbasi, Muhammad Zareed Qureshi Advocate, Moulana Muhammad Usman Abbassi, Aamir Qureshi and Abdul Jabbar Abbassi.
Thirteen candidates have withdrawn from PF-46 including Masood-ur-Rehman Tanoli Advocate, Haji Abdul Ghafoor, Pir Khan Tanoli Advocate , Iftikhar Khan Tanoli Advocate, Malik Manzoor Hussain Advocate, Abid Mehmood Lodhi, Sohail Ayub Tanoli Advocate, Muhammad Asad Khan Jadoon Advocate, Sabir Tanoli Advocate, Ali Afzal Jadoon, Dildar Khan Tanoli, Malik Muhammad Sarwar Khan Advocate and M. Javed Khan Tanoli.
In PF-47, four candidates have opted to leave the contest. They are Qazi Muhammad Azhar Advocate, Waheed Akhtar, Shabbir Khan and Malik Zeeshan while eleven candidates from PF-48 have decided to withdrew their nomination papers.
They are Murtaza Javed Abbassi, Mrs Sajida Masood Advocate, Sardar Fazal-ur-Rehman, Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob, Naheed Gul Abbassi, Haq Nawaz Abbassi, Shahid Nawaz Khan , Abdur Razzaq Abbassi, Abdul Shakoor Abbassi Advocate, Malik Jehanzeb and Sardar Ajlal khan.