RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founding chairman and deposed prime minister Imran Khan; vice chairman and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi; PTI’s president and ex-Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi and Awami Muslim League (AML) chief and former interior minister Sheikh Rashid are among the 145 Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail inmates who will cast their votes in the upcoming general polls from prison through postal ballots.
According to media reports, 145 prisoners at the Adiala Jail Rawalpindi have applied for permission to avail postal ballots to exercise their right to vote.
The prisoners who wished to cast their vote from the jail including Imran, Qureshi, Elahi, and Rashid were given time until January 22 to apply. However, the authorities at the Jail granted some additional time in this regard with the approval of the competent authority so as to give maximum opportunity to the prisoners to exercise their right to vote.
According to prisons department, the applications of all the inmates who wanted to cast their votes through postal ballots in the Feb 8 polls were being sent to the district returning officers concerned.
When the ballot papers are received from the DROs, polling booths will be established in the prison a day before the elections to provide the inmates with the facility of voting. After the completion of the polling process, all votes cast and other material – sealed in packets – will be handed over to the DROs under strict security.
Postal ballots are meant to allow government officials assigned election duties, armed forces personnel, individuals in public offices, as well as their spouses and children living away from their constituencies to cast their votes before the election day.
The ECP has received 449,287 applications for postal ballot. A total of 260,533 applications came in for postal ballots for the National Assembly and 242,754 for the four provincial assemblies.
In Punjab, 73,586 people applied for postal ballot for the NA and 74,274 for the provincial assembly seats.
Similarly, from Sindh, 24,420 postal ballot applications were filed for the NA and 26,649 for the provincial assembly seats.
From K-P, 72,769 postal ballot applications were received for the NA and 81,281 for the provincial assembly seats.
From Balochistan, 35,758 postal ballot applications were received for the NA and 60,550 for the provincial assembly constituencies.
