KARACHI: All arrangements for holding by-elections on 32 vacant local government seats in 18 districts of Sindh have been finalised and polling will begin at 8am on Thursday (today) which will continue till 5pm.

The by-elections are being held in Shaheed Benazirabad, Matiari, TandoAllahyar, Hyderabad, Tando Mohammad Khan, Jacobabad, Shikarpur, Larkana, QambarShahdadkot, Ghotki, Sukkur, Naushahro Feroze and Karachi`s Malir, West, South, Central, Korangi and Keamari districts.

Over 170 candidates, mainly belonging to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Jamaati-Islami, are in the run for the 32 seats, 10 of which are in Karachi division.

There are a total of 271 polling stations of which 213 have been categorised as `highly sensitive`, 47 `sensi-tive` and 11 `normal`.

According to the statistics issued by the office of election commissioner of Sindh, there are 433,951 registered voters in these constituencies.

Initially, the LG by-polls were scheduled to be held on 77 vacant seats across the province, but 41 aspirants have been elected unopposed and no nomination papers were filed on four vacant seats.

The by-elections are being held in 18 districts, including six districts in Karachi division, on 11 seats of UC chairmen, six vice chairmen, 13 general member seats and two seats of member of district council.

There are 68 candidates for posts of UC chairmen, 30 for vice chairmen, 54 for general members and 21 aspirants are contesting for member district council.

Karachi`s 10 vacant seats Moreover, there are 68 candidates in run for 10 vacant seats in the provincial metropolis and 168 polling stations have been set up.

The vacant seats in the city include the chairman of UC-9 Malir Town, general member ward 4 UC-7 Ibrahim Hyderi Town, general member ward-1 of UC-7 Korangi Town, chairman of UC-7 Model Colony Town, chairman of UC-6 Landhi Town, vice-chairman of UC-5 Yaseenabad Gulberg Town, chairman UC-7 Liaquatabad Town, chairman of UC-13 Saddar, general member ward-4 UC-10 Baldia Town and general member ward-4 UC-5 Manghopir Town.

There are a total of over 295,700 registered voters in these constituencies of the city, including over 157,600 male and around 137,800 female voters.

Meanwhile, Sindh Election Commissioner Sharifullah along with other senior officials addressed a press conference on Wednesday providing details of the byelections.

He was of the view that the election commission was satisfied with the law and order situation and police were also coordinating with other lawenforcement agencies and Rangers could be deputed at the polling stations on the recommendations of district returning officers.

He said that the election material had been delivered to respective polling stations.

The provincial election commissioner, who has recently been reinstated after his suspension over an incident regarding intrusion of a strong room of the ECP by some unidentified persons inKarachi in September, said that the investigations were underway about an incident of burning of election materials during a recount of votes in NA-231 (Malir) on the premises of the office of provincial election commissioner last month.

Fight in Hyderabad Polling for five seats of chairman/vice-chairman and one general ward councilor would be held on Thursday (today) after finalisation of the election schedule for vacant seats in Hyderabad district where 20 candidates are in the field for the fight.

Polling would be held for the seat of chairman and vice chairman for UC-140 of the town municipal corporation (TMC) Hussainabad; chairman for UC-125 TMC Hussainabad; vice chairman for UC-51 and general ward-I councilor for UC-46 of Paretabad TMC.

All of the 15 polling stations set up were declared sensitive. Candidates of the Pakistan Tehreek-iInsaaf, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Jamiat Ulma-i-Islam (Fazl) and Tehreek-i-Labbyak Pakistan (TLP) and independents were vying for the seats.

A total number of 21,432 voters, including men and women, would cast their votes. Around 250 police-men would be performing duties on the polling day.

Polling material had been handed over to polling personnel by the concerned returning officers.

Polling would begin at 8am and end at 5pm.

Hyderabad DC Zainul Abiden Memon announced local holiday for the UCs where polling would be held. When these seats were declared vacant by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), 50 candidates had filed forms for the constituencies.

A tough contest was expected in UC-125. The seat had fallen vacant following the death of PPP`s Barkat Babbar and now his son Istehsan Barkatwas contesting on PPP`s ticket and Mehboob Ali Abro, an independent candidate who is associate of Dr Zulfikar Mirza.

Similarly, PTPs Adnan Rasheed, who is currently the chairman of Paretabad TMC, was contesting on the vice-chairman seat of UC-51 of the town, as per the ECP requirement, on a PTI ticket.

He is facing PTPs activist Tanveer Ahmed who is contesting as independent candidate. Other candidates included Jibran Bhatti, TLP`s Shahbaz Siddiqui, PPP`s Mohammad Farhan.

Mohammed Hussain Khan in Hyderabad also contributed to this report.