Cantt Board LB polls: PML-N wins 68 seats, independents 54, PTI 43

Mumtaz Alvi & Saeed Ahmed

ISLAMABAD: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led the local bodies’ (LB) polls in 199 wards of 42 cantonments by bagging 68 seats while the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was the runner-up with 43 seats. As many as 54 independents appeared triumphant according to the unofficial results.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) got 19 seats, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) seven and Jamaat-e-Islami six while eight seats went to other parties, including the Awami National Party (ANP) which bagged two seats.

The electoral exercise was conducted by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

In the Rawalpindi Cantonment and Chaklala Cantonment Board local bodies polls, candidates belonging to the PML-N made a clean sweep winning in all 20 wards which proved a great setback for the PTI and its supporters.

According to the unofficial results gathered after the end of counting in all respective polling stations in Ward 1 of the RCB, Sajid Mahmood of the PML-N was declared successful and PTI candidate Muhammad Ejaz secured the second highest number of votes. In Ward-2, M Usman Khan of the PML-N defeated Zia Kosar Zaman of the PTI, In Ward-3, PML-N candidate Muhammad Shafique defeated Abdul Majeed Khan of PTI. Similarly, Rasheed Ahmad Khan in Ward-4, Raja Jahandad in Ward-5, ex-councillor, Haji Zafar Iqbal in Ward-6, Mansoor Afsar Ward-7, Arshad Mehmood Qureshi Ward-8, ex-councilor Hafiz Hussain Ahmed Ward-9 and Shahid Mughal in Ward-10 were declared successful against their rival candidates belonging particularly to the PTI.

The situation was not different in Chaklala wards as the PML-N candidates won nine out of 10 wards. In Ward-2 Mirza Khalid of the Jamaat-e-Islami won the seat.

The PML candidates who won from Chaklala wards included Pervaiz Akhtar Awan, Ward-1, Chaudhry Changez Ward-3, Mian Riaz Ward-4, Khalid Butt Ward-5, Chaudhry Khurram Siddique Ward-6, Malik Jamil Ward-7, Ch Khurram Shehzad Ward-8, Raja Irfan Imtiaz Ward-9, Naeem Azhar Ward-10.

After the elections, the winning candidates along with their supporters and workers came out on the roads of their wards and enthusiastically celebrated their victories by firing bullets and crackers and dancing in jubilation amidst thunderous slogans of ‘Wazir-e-Azam Nawaz Sharif Zindabad’ and ‘Wazir-e-Aala Punjab Shahbaz Sharif Zindabad’.

Reacting to the clean sweep made by the PML-N in the RCB and CCB, the chief of the AML and MNA Sheikh Rashid said that the PTI leadership did not field suitable and strong candidates in the cantonment elections of Rawalpindi and Chaklala. If the leadership of the PTI had consulted him before nominating their candidates, the result would have been totally different, he said.

Uninterrupted polling was held from 8:00am to 5:00pm across most of Pakistan.

A total of 1,151 candidates were in the field for the polls, which were held after a gap of 17 years under the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). There were over 1.87 million registered voters in the Cantonments across Pakistan.

The only cantonment board where the electoral exercise was not conducted is Ormara in Balochistan, where the electoral exercise would be held after the demarcation issue is settled.

In all, there were 610 independents in the contesting arena and 18 political parties had also fielded 541 candidates: the PTI was in the lead with 137 candidates, followed by the PML-N with 128 and PPP with 89 and JI with 74 candidates.

The MQM and PAT of Dr Tahirul Qadri have at least one similarity and that is that both had fielded 27 candidates each.

Fourteen candidates were returned unopposed. These included two each belonging to the PTI and MQM, one belonging to the PML-N and the rest are independents. Karachi leads with 32 wards followed by Lahore with 20 wards.

Of 1,225 polling stations, according to the ECP, 130 were declared highly sensitive while 310 were sensitive and the remaining 785 were tagged as normal polling stations.

Our Peshawar Bureau: In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) secured 12 seats in the elections for the 30 wards of the 10 Cantonment Boards.

In the provincial metropolis, the ruling PTI secured two seats and Jamaat-e-Islam (JI), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and an independent won one seat each in the elections in five wards.

The polling in Peshawar started at 8:00am in the 22 polling stations and continued uninterrupted and peacefully till 5:00pm. A total of 43 candidates were contesting for the five seats.

According to the results, independent candidate Muhammad Waris Afridi emerged victorious in Ward-1 where Syed Tariq Ali Shah of the Awami National Party (ANP) gave him a tough contest. Waris Afridi bagged 544 ballots and Tariq Shah polled 528.

Waris Afridi is a former member of the Cantonment Board, Peshawar, but he had won the seat in the past on an ANP ticket. This time he contested as an independent and defeated ANP’s Tariq Ali Shah, who is a cousin of former provincial minister Syed Aqil Shah. There were 11 candidates in Ward-1 including PTI’s Pir Imran Khan and those fielded by the PPP and PML-N.

In Ward-2, Sher Afzal of the PTI won by obtaining 308 votes against the 274 of ANP’s Muhammad Younas. Yadullah Bangash of the PPP was the winning candidate in Ward-3. He got 722 ballots against the 392 of Jawad Ahmad of PTI. Ghulam Hussain of PTI secured 562 votes in Ward-4 and was declared successful. He was followed by independent candidate Waris Khan with 450 votes.

Barrister Muhammad Atif Ali Khan of JI won from Ward-5. He secured 608 ballots against his close competitor Ubaid Hassan of ANP who polled 467 votes. The JI had fielded only two candidates in the Cantonment Board, Peshawar and it was supporting winner Waris Khan Afridi in Ward-1.

Strict security arrangements were made around the polling stations and other areas during the elections. The security had been assigned to the army. Senior Superintendent of Police Peshawar Dr Mian Saeed visited various polling stations and directed the policemen not to allow anyone, including candidates, to brandish weapons near the polling stations.

The media was allowed to visit only three polling stations. A total of 62 polling booths had been arranged for the 29,764 voters of the Peshawar Cantonment. With regard to the polling booths, 29 were specified for women and 33 for men voters. The turnout of female voters was reported to be low.

The process was completed in a peaceful manner. However, a scuffle took place between the workers of the PTI and JI on the Shami Road.

In Abbottabad, the PTI won three seats and PML-N got one out of the total nine wards of the Cantonment Board Abbottabad, Havelian and Kalabagh, according to unofficial results.

The PTI faced its first setback in the afternoon when its candidate Dr Arif was defeated by independent candidate Mumtaz Hussain in Cantonment Board (PAF base) Kalabagh.

Mumtaz Hussain bagged nine votes while Dr Arif got five votes out of the 17 that were registered.

Interestingly, the Returning Officer announced the unofficial result at about 1:00pm when all the votes were polled and both the candidates gave him in writing to announce the result. Muhammad Bashir Khan, another independent candidate, had already been elected unopposed from Ward-2 of the Cantonment Board, Kalabagh.

According to unofficial results of the Cantonment Board, Abbottabad, Sajjad Akhtar of the PML-N won from Ward 1, Syed Shah Faisal of PTI from Ward 2, Wajid Khan, an independent candidate, from Ward 3, Zulfiqar Ali of PTI from Ward 4 and Muhammad Bashir of PTI from Ward 5.

A total of 39 candidates contested from the nine wards of the three Cantonment Boards located in Abbottabad district. They included 28 candidates from Abbottabad, eight from Havelian and three from Kalabagh.

The elections were held in a peaceful manner and no untoward incident was reported from anywhere in Abbottabad district.

In Mardan, the Awami National Party (ANP) candidate won the election from Ward-1 while an independent candidate won the Ward-2 seat in the Cantonment Board Mardan election.

The total registered voters in Ward-1 were 1,094 and 610 polled their votes.

Tariq Khan of the ANP got 256 votes and won the election against the PTI candidate Muhammad Iqbal who polled 147 votes.

In Ward-2, the total registered voters were 938 and 442 votes were polled.

Anwar Ali and Bashir Zada contested as independent candidates, Shakir Khan on the ANP ticket and Mohammad Arif from the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Anwar Ali won the election with 228 votes while Shakir Khan received 210 votes and remained runner-up. Bashir Zada got 113 votes and Mohammad Arif 84.

The Election Commission had established four polling stations, two in each ward. The security was high throughout the day. The police and other security forces performed security duty on the polling stations and every voter was frisked.

In Nowshera, PTI candidate Fayyaz Khan won the election in Ward-1 by getting 1,522 votes against the Awami National Party (ANP) candidate Raja Muhammad Saeed who bagged 865 votes.

In Ward-2, ANP candidate Wajid Qayyum won by obtaining 569 votes against PTI’s Zulfiqar Babu who got 516 votes.

In Ward-3, PTI-JI joint candidate Shahid Hassan Shah won by obtaining 923 votes against ANP’s Muhammad Ashraf, who was polled 550 votes.

In Ward-4, independent candidate Muhammad Ismail won by getting 527 votes against PPP candidate Ziarat Gul, who got 419 votes.

In Risalpur Ward-1 of the Cantonment Board, PTI’s Abid Kaleem Mashwani won the race by obtaining 1,522 votes against ANP’s Tariq iqbal, who got 864 votes.

In Ward-2, PTI-JI candidate Syed Nadeem Shah Tippu won by obtaining 240 votes against an independent candidate Momin Bakhsh Paracha, who was polled 129 votes.

In Ward-3, Muhammad Aslam, an independent candidate, secured victory with 484 votes.

In Bannu, an Independent candidate Malik Shireen Zaman won from Ward-1. He secured 433 votes and his rival Behram Shehzad of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) got 365 votes.

In Ward-2, PTI’s Mumtaz Khan obtained 395 votes to win the seat. His rival JUI-F candidate Tariq Khan got 315 votes.

In Dera Ismail Khan, Major (R) Kifayatullah Khan, who contested as an independent candidate secured victory by obtaining 232 votes. His rival Malik Riaz got 162 votes.

In Kohat, PTI candidate Mohsin Attique won the election by securing 308 votes from Ward-1. His rival Faisal Aslam, an independent, obtained 250 votes.

From Ward-2, independent candidate Asad Javed secured 628 votes to emerge victorious. Loser Faiq Ali Shah obtained 327 votes. Independent candidate Muhammad Saqlain obtained 497 votes to win from Ward-3 against Iftiza Maryam who secured 290 votes.