After 17 years, LG polls today in six cantonments

KarachiFor the first time since 1998, local government elections will be held in six cantonment boards of Karachi amid tight security and heavy deployment of Rangers and police personnel. This is the first time local bodies elections are being held on party basis in cantonment boards across the country on

By Shamim Bano
April 25, 2015
Karachi
For the first time since 1998, local government elections will be held in six cantonment boards of Karachi amid tight security and heavy deployment of Rangers and police personnel.
This is the first time local bodies elections are being held on party basis in cantonment boards across the country on orders of the Supreme Court.
The last elected municipal bodies in cantonment areas had been suspended during the tenure of former president General Pervez Musharaf who had replaced them with three-member boards.
There are a total of 42 cantonment boards in the country out of which eight are in Sindh. Six of the total eight cantonments boards are in Karachi. They are: Cantonment Board Clifton, Cantonment Board Faisal, Cantonment Board Karachi, Cantonment Board Malir, Cantonment Board Manora and Cantonment Board Korangi Creek.
There are around 427,566 registered voters in the eight cantonment boards with 198,234 of them being women. They will exercise their right to vote to elect a total of 44 councillors.
There are 10 wards in Cantonment Board Faisal, two each Cantonment Boards Korangi Creek and Manora, five in Cantonment Board Karachi and three in Cantonment Board Malir.
There are 154,053 registered voters in Cantonment Board Faisal which is headed by the Base Commander of Pakistan Air Force.
Cantonment Board Manora has a total of 2,516 registered voters while there are 142,844 voters in Cantonment Board Clifton.
The Karachi Cantonment Board has 35,679 registered voters, Malir has 29,661 and there are 17, 949 registered voters in Cantonment Board Korangi.
The contesting candidates will not be allowed to organise any political activity or establish camps within a 300-metre radius of polling stations.
Meanwhile, the chief of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Altaf Hussain, has called on the people of Karachi to participate fully in the local bodies election in Karachi and Hyderabad.

JI seeks support
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman has appealed to the people to support his party for making the city developed and prosperous.
In a statement, he said JI candidate Muhammad Farooq had been elected unopposed in the Cantonment Board elections from Korangi Creek.
He hoped that the party candidates would be declared victorious from all other seats.
He further said that the JI representatives, including Abdul Sattar Afghani and Niamatullah Khan, had served the masses without any discrimination and the honest leadership of the party would serve the people of Karachi in future as well.
The JI candidates are Muhammad Bashir, Abdul Hameed, Naeem Akhtar, Osama Ahmed, Syed Humayoun Pervez, Muhammad Essa, Muhammad Abdul Muqdar, Syed Afzaal Ahmed Siddiqui, Muhammad Tariq Khan, Muhammad Ramzan Butt, Imran Shahid, Muhammad Rafi, Asad Iqbal, Younus Shah, Khalid Tanoli, Haji Abdul Hameed, Moonis Khalid, Shahid Ayub, Zakir Mahenti, Sardar Abdur Rasheed, Sufyan Dilawar, Sohail-ur-Rehman, Ahmed Awan, Ejaz Ahmed Muhammad Waqas, Roa Tariq and Gul Sher, from Ward-I of the District East, Ward-2 , Ward-3, Ward-5, Ward-6, Ward-7, Ward-8, Ward-9, Ward-10, Malir Cantonment Board District South Ward-1, Ward-2, Ward-3, Ward-4, Ward-5, Ward-6 respectively.