The Election Commission (EC) has disclosed the draft number of 42,618 polling stations for the 13th parliamentary election, raising the number by around 468 from the last national election.

Any claims or objections regarding the draft could be filed before 25 September, and the EC would resolve them by 12 October. The final list would be announced on 20 October.

EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed made the remarks while talking to journalists at his office on Wednesday. According to him, the total number of voters is 126.3 million.

Once the election schedule is announced, the Commission is obliged to publish the list of polling centres, including names, number of voters, and number of booths, in a gazette at least 25 days before the polling date.

According to the draft, among the 42,618polling stations, the number of polling booths would be 244,046. Of them, 114,939 would be for men and 129,107 for women, the EC official said.

Although the provision of one polling station for every 3,000 voters remains in force, the new policy increases the number of booths for men and women.

According to the revised policy, one booth must be allocated for every 600 male voters and every 500 female voters. Previously, under the rule of one station per 3,000 voters, one booth was allocated for every 500 male voters and every 400 female voters.

During the last parliamentary election, there were 42,150 polling stations for 119.1 million voters, with a total of 261,472 polling booths.