The residents of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) have gone to the polls today to elect new members of the region’s Legislative Assembly.
AJK has a total of 32,50,117 registered voters, including 17,8,800 male and 14,68,317 female.
There are 33 electoral constituencies in the ten districts of AJK. While 12 constituencies are reserved for Pakistan-based Jammu & Kashmir refugees. Polling booths in all the provinces have been set up for the refugees.
Over 2.8 million voters have been registered in 33 AJK constituencies and 0.4 million in 12 Jammu Kashmir refugees based in various parts of Pakistan.
A total of 691 candidates, including 381 belonging to a total of 32 registered political parties and a total of 310 independent candidates, are in the run to win the election for 45 seats.
The elections are being held under the supervision of AJK Judiciary, Pakistan Army and Rangers with the coordination of the local civil law enforcement institutions.
1:30pm — PML-N workers exposing vote thieves: Maryam Nawaz
PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz tweeted that the her party workers are standing firmly and exposing the “vote thieves”.
“PML-N workers are standing firm and exposing vote thieves,” said Maryam. She added that the Nawaz Sharif’s slogan of “vote ko izzat do”, respect the vote, has given her party “active activists”.
Polling was stopped briefly at the polling station set up at the Government Shaheed Hussain Ali Shah Higher Secondary School after a physical altercation between the school principal and the presiding officer.
The physical altercation between the two happened over a power outage at the school. The scuffle between the two began after the presiding officer complained about the electricity problem.
The polling process was stopped after the scuffle as the presiding officer and the polling staff refused to perform their duty in protest.
The polling resumed after issues between the polling staff and the principal were resolved.
