The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday announced the schedule for by-polls in NA-249 after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Faisal Vawda resigned from the National Assembly seat. The by-election will be held on April 29. Candidates can submit their nomination papers between March 13 and March 17. Candidates withdrawing from the by-elections will be able to withdraw their papers by April 7. The scrutiny process will start on March 25.
Vawda had resigned after casting his vote in the Senate elections on March 3. He had won the seat during the 2018 general election after securing 35,344 votes. This will be the second closely watched by-election in the last month. The government and Opposition parties are also getting ready for the re-polling in Daska’s NA-75 scheduled for April 10.
The last NA-249 election had been a close contest, with Vawda securing 35,344 votes to defeat Shahbaz who polled 34,626 votes. Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan’s candidate Mufti Abid Mubarak and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) candidate Aslam Shah had ranked third and fourth after bagging 23,981 and 13,534 votes respectively. Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Ataullah Shah had ranked fifth by securing 10,307 votes while PPP’s candidate Qadir Mandokhel polled a mere 7,236 votes and ranked sixth in the competition.
The ANP and the JUI-F had formally announced their support for Shahbaz in the constituency.
NA-249 is among the constituencies of Karachi that border Balochistan and is exclusively composed of the entire Baldia Town, comprising Pashtun, Hazarewal (Hindko) and Muhajir populated neighbourhoods with a few Baloch and Sindhi villages.
