Poling underway for electing 06 Senate representatives of ICT,Fata

ISLAMABAD, Mar 03 (APP):The polling is underway in the National Assembly hall here on
Saturday to elect 6 Senators representing Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT)
and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
The National Assembly hall has already been declared polling station by the election commission of
Pakistan the other day.
As many as 05 candidates are vying for two seats from the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), while 24 candidates
are in the run to grab 04 Fata seats. The polling would continue till 4pm without
any break.
The polling was started at 9 am. Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq was the first legislator who cast his vote.
Followed in line was Minister for Defense Production Rana Tanveer Hussein and
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Shaikh Aftab Ahmed.
Other prominent members who have so far cast their vote included
Leader of Opposition Khurshid Shah, Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination
Riaz Pirzada, and Minister of State for Finance Rana Afzal Khan.
Rangers and Frontier Constabulary personnel have been
deployed outside the Parliament House to maintain law and order. FATA senators
are elected by the MNAs from the tribal areas and the Islamabad senators by the
National Assembly members.
Members of the National Assembly from Fata (11) are electing 04 Fata senators, while other members of
the National Assembly are electing 02 senators from Islamabad.
The National Assembly has 272 members elected on general seats out of total 342 seats.
Of them, 11 members will be required to elect each of the four Fata senators.
Half of the remaining 228 MNAs (114) will be required to elect Senators from
Islamabad.
The Senate election is held through secret voting on a basis of
single transferable vote through “preference voting”.
All four provincial assemblies are electoral college for the four respective assemblies.