By-election held in KP peacefully amid low turnout

PESHAWAR: The voter turnout was low, but the hustle and bustle at the camps established outside the polling stations by the political parties vying for three National Assembly seats in Peshawar, Charsadda and Mardan was worth seeing as by-elections for the three constituencies were held peacefully on Sunday.

The candidates and senior leaders of the main political parties other than the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) visited the polling stations and were seen visiting the polling camps of all the political parties as a goodwill gesture.

“May Allah enable us to complete the process in a peaceful manner,” were the remarks of Maulana Mohammad Qasim, one of the leading candidates for the NA-22 Mardan-3, when he visited the polling camps of the PTI and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) besides his own alliance - the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

Similar gestures were shown by the central leader Awami National Party (ANP) and PDM candidate on NA-31 Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour and ANP’s provincial president and the same alliance’s candidate on NA-24 Aimal Wali Khan.

Actually, candidates from three main political forces, PTI, PDM and JI were in the field for the by-elections. The JI’s candidates on the three seats - Haji Mohammad Aslam in Peshawar, Mujeebur Rahman in Charsadda and Abdul Wasi in Mardan - also demonstrated political maturity on the polling day. They too remained busy all day visiting polling stations to muster support of the people and display a pleasant democratic gesture by visiting the camps of other political parties.

The PTI, which is ruling Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was represented by their chairman and former prime minister, Imran Khan. He was not seen anywhere in any constituency. However, the camps set up by his party remained full of workers all the time.

Also, PTI provincial and national assembly members, senators and other leaders were too frequent in visiting the polling stations and spending time at the party’s camps.

Apart from a few untoward incidents at some polling stations in the provincial capital, the overall election was held in a peaceful manner.

The actual position was not clear till filing this report as results had just started coming in. But the real contest was witnessed between the candidates of the PDM and the PTI.

The JI seemed to have taken part in the by-election to keep its workers engaged in the political process. Their leadership was also aware of the fact that if they could bag ballots in accordance with the party’s strength in the respective constituencies, it would be their great achievement. And the party’s strength in all the constituencies was not more than 10,000-20,000 votes as observed in all the previous elections.