Islamabad/Lahore/Karachi/Quetta: Polling for general elections 2024 is underway across the country.
As many as 90,675 polling stations have been established across the country, where about 128 million registered voters will exercise their right to vote.
Government has suspends cellular services across Pakistan.
The polling process started at 8am and will conclude at 5pm.
The voters are required to bring their original Computerized National Identity Cards (CNIC) in order to cast the vote. Expired CNIC is also acceptable.
The elections will be held on 265 seats of National Assembly and five hundred and ninety seats of four provincial assemblies.
A total of 5,121 candidates are in the race for the National Assembly seats. These include 4807 male, 312 female and two transgenders.
For the four provincial assemblies, 12,695 candidates are in the field including 12,123 male, 570 women and two transgenders.
Punjab has the majority number of 73, 207,896 registered voters followed by Sindh with 26,994,769, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) with 21,928,119, Balochistan with 5,371,947 and federal capital Islamabad 1,083,029.
As per the electoral body, 90,777 polling stations have been established nationwide. Of these, 44,000 polling stations have been declared normal, 29,985 sensitive and 16,766 highly sensitive.
About 6,50,000 security personnel have been deployed across the country to maintain law and order for the smooth and fair electoral process. These include the personnel of police, civil armed forces and the armed forces, the Radio Pakistan reported.
Under a three-tiered system, the personnel of the armed forces will perform duties outside the polling stations.
Meanwhile, the ECP has completed all arrangements for the polling. It has completed the delivery of around 260 million ballot papers.
Moreover, in the federal capital, police personnel have reached the polling stations and they will stay there overnight.
Along with 6500 personnel of Islamabad Police, 1000 FC, 1500 Rangers and Pakistan Army jawans will perform the duties. A central control room for elections has been set up in Safe City.
