By-elections to National Assembly and Sindh Assembly for two vacant seats from Karachi NA-247 (South-II) and PS-111 (South-V) will be held today. The seats fell vacant due to election of Arif Alvi as President of Pakistan and appointment of Imran Ismail as Sindh Governor, respectively.
Karachiites will witness polling for said seats for the second time in less than three months. As many as 546,451 registered voters, 295,567 men and 250,884 women are eligible to cast votes at 960 booths at 240 polling stations in the NA-247.
Karachi Deputy Mayor and Pak Sarzameen Party leader Arshad Vohra, Aftab Hussain Siddiqui of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan's Sadiq Iftikhar, Qaisar Nizamani of Pakistan Peoples Party are among those 12 contestants who are in the run for said National Assembly constituency.
However, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, which lost as the closest rival in the July 25th election, is no more in the ring of election-fray since the nomination papers of its candidate Sohail Qadri were rejected. PTI's Dr Arif Alvi was elected MNA from NA-247 by securing 91,020 votes and there was a huge margin between him and the closest runner Syed Zaman Ali Jafri of TLP who bagged 24,680 votes.
The MQM-P senior leader Dr Farooq Sattar was polled 24,146 votes whereas the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal's Muhammad Hussain Mehanti got 22,780 votes. Then, turnout was 40.27 per cent. Incumbent Governor of Sindh Imran Ismail had been elected Member of Provincial Assembly from PS-111 securing 30,576 votes against closest rival Sufyan of MMA who got 8,753 votes.
Now, PTI's Shahzad Qureshi, MQM-P's Jahanzeb Mughal, Sikandar Agar of TLP, the PPP's Muhammad Fayyaz Pirzada and Muhammad Zahid Hussain of the PML-N, rights activist Jibran Nasir and some other independents are contesting for PS-111.
As many as 320 booths were established at 80 polling stations where 178,965 are registered voters, including 94,719 males and 84,246 females. The turnout in the last election was 41.59 per cent.