The opening round of the AJK elections wrapped up on Monday, covering 13 constituencies across Mirpur Division. Officials pushed polling back by an extra hour before ballot boxes closed at 6pm and vote counting got underway.
Nearly 300 candidates, drawn from the Pakistan Peoples Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party, and a slate of independents, competed for seats spanning Mirpur, Kotli, and Bhimber districts.
Election authorities reported that just over 1.4 million voters were registered to take part in this stage of the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly polls, with a near-even split between roughly 725,000 male and 676,000 female voters.
Polling Stations and Security Setup
To manage the vote, the AJK Election Commission set up 2,454 polling stations across the division — 597 in Mirpur’s four constituencies, 1,107 spread across six constituencies in Kotli, and 608 across three constituencies in Bhimber.
Officials said tight security measures were rolled out to keep the process running smoothly. Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Ghulam Mustafa Mughal cautioned that anyone caught trying to sabotage the vote would face serious legal consequences.
AJK Chief Secretary Khushhal Khan echoed that message, saying residents had turned their backs on “disruptive elements” and trusted the democratic system. He added that government institutions were on standby to keep the vote peaceful, warning that troublemakers would answer to the law.
Gunfire Leaves One Dead in Kotli
The AJK elections first phase wasn’t without bloodshed. A shooting at a polling station in LA-9 Kotli-II Nakyal left one person dead and three wounded, according to police. Deputy Inspector General Kamran Ali confirmed the death, and voting at that station was halted afterward.
PPP candidate Javed Budhanvi named the victim as party worker Mukhtar Younis, whose body was taken to Tehsil Headquarters Hospital. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari mourned the loss and sent condolences to the family, claiming the shots came from supporters of PML-N candidate Umair Niazi.
Government Adviser Calls Voting “Largely Peaceful”
Prime Minister’s Adviser on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah described the day’s voting as mostly calm, noting the Kotli shooting as the lone major incident. He said a handful of smaller issues cropped up but nothing else disrupted the process significantly.
Sanaullah also pointed to the hot weather as a factor behind the decision to stretch polling hours, and called the overall arrangements for the Azad Kashmir election satisfactory.
PPP Accuses PML-N of Stirring Controversy
PPP Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman pushed back against PML-N, accusing the party of trying to muddy the Kashmir election out of fear it would lose. She insisted Kashmiri voters were sharp enough to make their own choices and pointed to the PPP’s long-standing ties with the region.
Rehman asked why PML-N would object if voters chose the PPP, arguing the mandate couldn’t be taken through what she called backdoor tactics — and predicted a PPP win regardless of the opposition’s approach.
PPP Information Secretary Shazia Marri said Kashmiris would speak through the ballot, calling the party’s arrow symbol a sign of hope for Mirpur voters, and claimed rival camps had gone quiet ahead of the results.
In a video message with his sister Asifa Bhutto-Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari urged people to vote if they wanted Kashmir’s future shaped by Kashmiris themselves, asking them to back the PPP’s arrow symbol at the polls.
Senior PPP figure Nadeem Afzal Chan raised separate concerns about alleged federal interference and misuse of state resources during the vote, calling on the federal government to stay out of the process and let the election run fairly.
Ballot Box Torched in Bhimber Clash
A violent clash erupted between rival party workers at the Darbar Baba Shadi Shaheed polling station in LA-6 Bhimber. PML-N candidate Abdul Razzaq Chaudhry blamed opposing workers for starting the fight and also accused IPP supporters of causing trouble at Polling Station No. 95, saying both stations suspended voting as a result.
The District Returning Officer confirmed the Darbar Baba Shadi Shaheed clash, saying unidentified individuals seized a ballot box holding 232 votes and set it ablaze. Security staff and the returning officer remained on-site, and legal action is expected against those responsible.
The DRO said a call on whether to hold re-polling at the affected station would come later, adding that voting elsewhere stayed normal. He also confirmed that former prime minister Anwarul Haq filed a complaint over LA-7, which he personally looked into, finding Haq’s polling agents present at the relevant stations.
As the AJK elections first phase draws to a close, attention now turns to the vote count and how the violence in Kotli and Bhimber may shape the political fallout in the coming days.