MIRPUR: Kashmiris living in AJK as well as different parts of Pakistan on Sunday casted their votes to elect a new AJK Legislative Assembly.Voting took place in 37 out of 41 electoral constituencies including 29 of AJK and 8 out of all 12 meant for Pakistan-based Jammu & Kashmir refugees in a partially peaceful and smooth manner, officials said.
Elections were postponed in three constituencies including LA -30 (Jammu-I) and LA-36 (Kashmir valley-I) due to worsening law and order situation in Karachi and in LA-41 (Kashmir valley-6) following challenging of voters list related to Khyber PakhtunKhawa province in the court of law.
Similarly, polling in electoral constituency of LA-37 (Kashmir valley) in Lahore was postponed following violent clashes between the workers of PPP and PML-N at the beginning of polling on Sunday morning, AJK Elections Commission sources told APP when contacted.
The polling started at 08:00 a.m and continued till 05:00 p.m without any pause in line with the schedule set by AJK Election Commission.
“There was complete peace and we performed our duties independently without any unrest from any quarter including candidates or their supporters during the polling,” Presiding Officer of the Polling Station set up at Industrial Rest House in the Mirpur city constituency said.
He said, during polling, computerized National Identity Card in original were required to be produced by the voters as the proof of their identification in line with the directives of AJK Election Commission.
The voters were seen moving to the polling stations on their own, however, female voters, in some constituencies, were seen moving through the vehicles belonging to various candidates.
Para-military troops were posted at the sensitive polling stations in all the electoral constituencies to assist the civil administration and police to maintain law and order situation.
A thumping majority of a total of 30,39,926 eligible registered voters (both male and female) moved to 4351 polling stations to exercise their right of vote to elect their representatives for AJK Legislative Assembly, the AJK Election Commission sources said.
Strict security measures were adopted by local administrations in all the electoral constituencies to deal with any untoward incident effectively.
Over 700 polling stations were declared sensitive where extra para-military troops were deployed to assist the local police for dealing with any eventuality.
The polling agents of various candidates and polling staff deployed at various polling stations while talking to batkhela-movies. expressed their complete satisfaction over the voting process.