The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) on Monday secured seven seats in unofficial and unconfirmed results for the first phase of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly elections held across 13 constituencies in Mirpur Division, taking the lead against the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which leads on three seats.
Declared unofficial results show PPP candidate Qasim Majeed winning the LA-2 Mirpur-II seat with 12,904 votes, defeating PMLN’s Azeem Bakhsh Chaudhry, who secured 8,182 votes. In LA-12 Kotli-V, PMLN’s Muhammad Riasat Khan won 35,168 votes against 30,320 for PPP candidate Chaudhry Muhammad Yasin.
In LA-8 Kotli-I, PPP candidate Zafar Iqbal Malik secured 19,535 votes, defeating PMLN’s Malik Muhammad Nawaz Khan, who won 11,966 votes. In LA-11 Kotli-IV, PMLN’s Muhammad Asif won 26,190 votes, against PPP’s Chaudhry Muhammad Akhlaq, who won 21,751 votes.
In LA-13 Kotli-VI, PMLN candidate Raja Ayaz Ahmed Khan won 21,856 votes, defeating Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party candidate Nisar Ansar Abdali’s 15,859 votes. In LA-1 Mirpur-I, PMLN candidate Azhar Sadiq won 15,427 votes, defeating PPP candidate Muhammad Afser Shahid, who had 9,832 votes.
In LA-3 Mirpur-III, PPP’s Chaudhry Yasir Sultan won with 11,676 votes against 9,832 polled by PMLN candidate Chaudhry Muhammad Saeed. PMLN’s Rukhsar Ahmed won the LA-4 Mirpur-IV constituency after securing 20,172 votes, defeating PPP’s Chaudhry Sohaib Arshad, who received 13,865 votes.
In LA-9 Kotli-II, PMLN candidate Umair Niazi won with 31,080 votes, ahead of PPP’s Javed Iqbal Budhanvi, who had 28,509 votes.
PMLN candidate Chaudhry Tariq Farooq won the LA-7 Bhimber-III seat with 35,490 votes, defeating independent candidate Chaudhry Anwarul Haq, who had 25,100 votes.
The results of three constituencies are still awaited.
The elections were contested by 296 candidates across Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimber districts. Election officials said 1,401,439 registered voters were eligible to cast ballots in the first phase, comprising 725,118 men and 675,628 women.
For the polls, the Election Commission established 2,454 polling stations across Mirpur Division, including 597 in Mirpur district, 1,107 in Kotli district and 608 in Bhimber district. Authorities said comprehensive security arrangements were put in place to ensure the smooth conduct of the electoral process.
One killed
Despite largely peaceful polls, violence was witnessed in LA-9, with police saying one person was killed and three others injured in a shooting at a polling station. Polling at the relevant station was suspended after the incident, with the PPP saying the deceased was one of its workers.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari alleged the shooting was done by supporters of PMLN candidate Umair Niazi.
Separately, in LA-6, a clash broke out between workers of two political parties at the Darbar Baba Shadi Shaheed polling station, with PMLN candidate Abdul Razzaq Chaudhry alleging that IPP workers had created a disturbance.
During a press conference, the chief election commissioner termed these polls “the most difficult” in the history of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. He said that while one or two isolated incidents do occur during elections, political parties often misrepresent them by blowing those occurrences out of proportion, without investigating them.
Officials also defended the low turnout, maintaining that while few people came out during the morning, the numbers picked up in the evening. They also claimed that the turnout was noticeably higher in rural and peripheral areas than urban centers.