PESHAWAR: Polling began early Tuesday morning for by-elections in seven districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Voters and election officials are reportedly facing difficulties because of absence of electricity and water at polling venues. There is no drinking water available at a polling station for ladies in Kashkal. Power is also missing at polling station in government primary school number 4 in Kashkal.
Yesterday PML-N’s Tufail Jutt won the by-polls in Chichawatni with 76,580 votes to his credit for the National Assembly seat NA-162, unofficial and unconfirmed results suggested.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Rai Murtaza was at the second spot with 63,211 votes whilePakistan People's Party candidate Shahzad Saeed Cheema received 15,873 votes, taking the third spot.
The seat had fallen vacant after Rai Hassan Nawaz of PTI was disqualified by an election tribunal for concealing assets, a decision that the Supreme Court later upheld.
He had clinched NA-162 seat in the 2013 parliamentary polls on the PTI ticket by bagging 88,974 votes against 75,756 ballots of the runner-up, Haji Ayub, an independent.
The PML-N had not fielded any candidate in the constituency.