Imran wins NA seat in KP by-poll

PESHAWAR: Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ( PTI) Imran Khan won another seat in the National Assembly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in by-elections for NA-45 Kurram on Sunday.

As per the result of 142 of 143 polling stations, imran Khan received 20,614 votes while Jamil Khan of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl ( JUIF) got 12, 604 votes. No other candidate could get any significant number of votes as the third one bagged only 736..

The turn -out remained 18.45 per cent while Imran bagged 58.5 and Jamil Khan got 35.8 per cent of the polled votes. PTI had won all the three seats in by-polls in KP on October 16. Imran Khan defeated Maulana Muhammad Qasim in NA-22 Mardan, Aimal Wali Khan in NA-24 Charsadda and Ghulam Ahmad Bilour in NA-31 Peshawar.

Strictest security arrangements were made on Sunday for the polls in Kurram where all the 143 polling stations were either declared sensitive or most sensitive. Heavy contingents of police along with army and FC were deployed in the constituency for maintaining law and order during polling.

The inspector general of police also visited the office of the Election Commission of Pakistan to see the measures taken for the security. No major untoward incident happened during the polling. The by-polls in the constituency were earlier scheduled for October 16 but were postponed for a couple of weeks due to the law and order situation.

Sixteen candidates were in the run for the by-elections. There were a total of 111,349 male voters and 87,269 female voters in the constituency. This was the second by-election in NA-45 after the general elections. The seat was vacated by PTI MNA Fakhar Zaman after he resigned along with other party lawmakers few months back. The PTI candidate had won the seat in by-polls in 2021 after the death of former MNA Munir Orakzai of JUIF who was elected in 2018 general elections.

Meanwhile, the ECP served another notice on Imran Khan to appear in Islamabad on November 1 and explain his position in a violation of code of conduct case. Imran was served two notices earlier but he did not turn up. Also, the ECP slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 on a tehsil chairman for code of conduct violation.