DERA GHAZI KHAN City News

LG polls
4 lakh more voters to cast votes in DG Khan district this year
From Hasnain Qaisrani
DERA GHAZI KHAN: Around four lakh more voters have been registered during the last 10 years while the number of union councils has been doubled for the upcoming local government (LG) elections in Dera Ghazi Khan district.
The last LG elections were conducted on August 18 2005 in the district, an the total number of registered voters at that time was 785,308 including 360,978 female voters. Then the district consisted of seven urban councils and 52 union councils besides the DG Khan tehsil comprising 41 union councils where 522,201 voters had polled their votes.
Similarly, in the five union councils of tribal area, 72,930 voters, and in 13 union councils of tehsil Taunsa Sharif, 190,177 voters had cast their votes.
Now the district has been divided into 115 union councils including 17 urban councils for Municipal Corporation DG Khan, while its further division consisted of 35 union councils in DG Khan tehsil, 20 union councils for tehsil Kot Chutta, 24 for tehsil Taunsa Sharif and nine for tribal area.
Similarly, Taunsa Sharif and Kot Chutta have also been upgraded as municipal committees for the first time.
For the third phase of LG elections, 1,173,040 voters would elect their representatives on Dec 5 in the district.
The figures obtained from the Election Commission of Pakistan revealed that the number of registered voters is 191,929 for the 17 urban councils of the municipal corporation which include 84,802 female voters.
For 24 union councils of Tehsil Taunsa Sharif, the number of voters registered with the ECP is 242,019, while for 35 union councils of DG Khan tehsil, 333,281 voters would poll their votes.
With 13 union councils of tehsil Kot Chutta, the number of registered voters is 272,798, while for the nine union councils of the tribal belt the number of voters is 147,272.
Similarly, for the 13 wards of the municipal committee Kot Chutta, 19,431 voters would poll their votes while in 20 wards of municipal committee of Taunsa Sharif, 27,974 votes have been enrolled.
As per the amended procedure, this time voters would poll votes for the election of the chairman/vice chairman and for male general councillors while in the local government elections of 2005, voters had polled their votes to elect nazim/naib nazim, general councillors, female councillors besides labour/peasant councillors.