Following PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s decision to contest elections from all nine National Assembly constituencies that fell vacant after the speaker accepted resignations of a few of his party MNAs, it was estimated that the cost of holding polls will cost millions of rupees to the national exchequer if he resigns from the seats if he wins all of them — which he will ultimately have to.

According to sources, the minimum expenditure incurred in an election in one constituency is around Rs50-100 million, while in sensitive and far-flung areas the cost is approximately around Rs100 million.

Consequently, sources added that in order to conduct elections in nine constituencies, it is estimated that Rs500-900 million will be needed as expenses include printing and purchase of material used such as ballot papers, forms bags, etc.

Moreover, additional expenses are also incurred on the following:

• Security from rangers and police officials
• Deployment of army
• Training of election staff
• IT equipment
• Transport and fuel

If the PTI chief wins elections from all nine constituencies then he will have to choose one out of the nine. It should be noted that Khan is already a member of the National Assembly as he won 2018’s general elections from Mianwali.

Consequently, if Khan wins the elections, in any case, by-elections will once again be held in all nine constituencies which will lead to an expenditure of nearly Rs500-900 million.

In 2018, Khan contested from five constituencies and won all five. He managed to bag every single seat he contested on, which included:

• From NA-53 Islamabad — he defeated former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi
• From NA-35 Bannu — he defeated MMA candidate Akran Durrani
• From NA-243 Karachi — he defeated MQM-P Ali Raza Abidi
• From NA-95 Mianwali — he defeated PML-N candidate Obaidullah Shadikhel
• From NA-131 Lahore — he defeated PML-N leader Khawaja Saad Rafique

Ultimately, he had to vacant four seats and decided to retain the Mianwali constituency.