High-stakes polling for 37 Senate seats underway

A total of 78 candidates are vying for the seats from Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad.

Polling for 37 seats of the Senate is underway under the supervision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as a total of 78 candidates contest from Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad.

In the National Assembly, the first vote was cast by PTI’s Shafiq Arain while the second one was cast by federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda.

NA speaker Asad Qaiser, Prime Minister Imran Khan, PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif are among those who have cast their votes.

Polling is also underway is provincial assemblies, apart from Punjab where all Senate candidates were elected unopposed last month after disqualification or withdrawal of papers by other contestants.

Polling started at 9am and will continue till 5pm without any break. ECP staff reached the Parliament House in Islamabad early morning on Wednesday. The campaign for this year’s election ended at midnight on March 3.