The Election Commission of Pakistan has announced the date of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly elections.
According to the notification, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly elections will be held on October 8. Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Haji Ghulam Ali had proposed October 8 as the date for the election.
It should be noted that the Election Commission has postponed the Punjab Assembly elections to be held on April 30 and has given the date to October 8.
In this regard, Tehreek-e-Insaaf has also filed an application in the Supreme Court, on which a 5-member bench headed by Chief Justice Umar Atta Bandyal has been hearing for two days.
Earlier, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Haji Ghulam Ali Friday urged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold the general elections in the province on October 8, the same date the electoral watchdog has announced for Punjab, keeping in mind a rise in terror activities.
The governor, in the letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, said it would be in the “best public interest as well as in the interest of the state” if polls were held in October instead of a previous date that he had suggested — May 28.
The ECP’s decision to withdraw an earlier announcement for Punjab elections came after security and financial bodies refused to back the commission during the upcoming polls.
The governor noted that recently, a fresh wave of terrorist activities has been taking place in the northwestern province on a daily basis.
He said major terrorist activities include cross-border fire in North Waziristan, an improvised explosive device (IED) blast on an army vehicle in Kohat, heavy exchange of fire with terrorists in South Waziristan on March 15, unknown terrorists fire on Khyber’s Bara Police Station on March 19.
Citing further incidents, he said a terrorist attack took on a police station in DI Khan followed by a search operation by the army, resulting in the martyrdom of three army soldiers on the night between March 21 and 22.
Also, he said, on March 21, a convoy was ambushed in South Waziristan which resulted in the martyrdom of Brigadier Mustafa Kama
