Aakash Hassan
ISLAMABAD
With all eyes on it, amid tight security arrangements, polling is going on in Islamabad assembly segment.
The 410-member polling staff, comprising of presiding officers and polling officers, Tuesday departed from Government Boys Degree college Khanabal, with EVMs, under the fixed security personals, to the 102 polling stations of the constituency.
The 84081 voters will decide the fate of the eight candidates including the incumbent Chief Minister Ms Mehbooba Mufti.
The others are Hilal Ahmad Shah of Congress, Iftikar Hussain Misgar of National Conference, Advocate Mujeeb ur Rehman from AIP and independent candidates, Tejinder Singh, Manzoor Ahmad Khan, Masroor Ahmad Mir and Mushtaq Ahmad Shah.
The Islamabad seat fell vacant with the demise of former CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on January 07, 2016. The polls were notified by ECI but were deferred twice. Today’s polling comes in the wake of election boycott call by separatists as well as United Jihad Council (UJC).
A total of 4,229 migrant voters of the constituency will be voting. 15 polling stations have been put in Jammu and four in Delhi, while as one such polling booth is in place in Udhampur.
The polling has begun at 7 this morning and will subsequently end at 6 in the evening.
Keeping in view the security, all the polling booths have been marked as “hyper sensitive or sensitive”.
Additional deployment of police and paramilitary forces has already been made.
“With the concern of militancy related activities, security agencies are alert. Sufficient deployment of the paramilitary and police has been made though the number couldn’t be revealed,” a top cop revealed.
“To ensure that no tension prevails in the town and other parts of the constituency, we have deployed additional officials to monitor the situation. The security has been beefed up since last week,” the cop said.
