LAHORE (National Times) – Polling for by-elections on eight National Assembly and three Punjab Assembly seats is underway and will continue till 5:00pm without any interval.

The NA seats were vacated after speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf had, on July 28, accepted the resignations of PTI MNAs — nine on general seats and two on reserved seats for women.

According to the spokesperson of the Election Commission of Pakistan, over 100 candidates belonging to different political parties and independents are contesting the by-polls while there are a total of 2,460,000 male and 2,028,000 female voters in these eleven constituencies.

The ECP has established 2,937 polling stations in these constituencies, of which 747 are highly sensitive while 694 have been declared sensitive.

Police, Rangers and Pakistan Army personnel have been deployed for security of the voters. A central control room has also been set up in the Election Commission Secretariat to monitor the by-elections and the Chief Election Commissioner is monitoring the entire election process.

In Punjab, three seats of the National Assembly and three of the provincial assembly are up for grabs. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, by-polls will be held on three NA seats and in Sindh, where contestants will compete for two seats of the lower house of parliament.

A tough contest is expected as in NA-108, Abid Sher Ali and in NA-118, Shezra Mansab Ali of PML-N are contesting against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan.

For Multan NA-157, Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s daughter Meharbano Qureshi is contesting on PTI’s ticket while PPP’s Ali Musa Gilani is facing her. The constituency has 462,000 voters.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s NA-22, Imran Khan is up against JUI-F’s Mohammad Qasim. In NA-24, the PTI chief is facing ANP’s provincial chief Aimal Wali Khan.

A tough contest is also expected in NA-31 between Imran Khan and ANP leader’s Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour.