Public and private transport on Monday remained thin and the city's major arteries wore a deserted look during whole poll day. Since early morning, the thinnest public transport was witnessed plying on city's roads because about 80 percent of buses and minibuses had been booked by different political parties' activities aimed to facilitate voters at their constituencies.
All city's roads wore a deserted look and even private transport was not seen because of insecurity and any future untoward situation, hence voters short attendance has been witnessed, while casting of votes rapidly increased at last hour of the polling day.
This scribe witnessed that Shahrah-e-Liaquat, Hasan Square, University Road, Gulstan-e-Jauhar, Sohrab Goth, Abul Hasan Ispahani Road, M.A Jinnah Road, Site, Jauhar More, University Road, Sohrab Goth, Tower, Sharea Faisal and I.I.Chundrigar Roads wore deserted look during whole day.
When contacted, Syed Irshad Hussain Shah Bukhari, president, Karachi Transport Ittehad and asked, why public was being suffered due to shortage of public transport, he said that immense number of buses had been booked by different political party leaders.
When asked, had these buses been reserved by force from activists, he neither denied nor accepted that buses had been booked by force.
However, advance celebration of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Peoples Party Parliamentarian Pakistan (PPPP) have been started at all major areas of metropolis since evening. The bike processions of MQM and PPPP were hanging around without silencers at their vote banks and dancing on the roads and celebrating in advance.
According to security plan, strict action has been taken if anybody tries to rig or disrupt the electoral process. The interior ministry had deployed around five million security personnel on the polling day, including 81,000 troops.
It may be mentioned that around 150 peoples have been killed during run-up to the elections. The provincial government had also installed hundreds of vigilance cameras and conducted aerial surveys for closer look and keep the security measures at alert till the official announcement of the election results.