Various discrepancies and flaws were noticed in the voters' lists during the first phase of the local bodies elections, held in 17 districts of the Punjab province on Thursday.
A team of Lahore based journalists that visited polling stations in Sahiwal and Pakpattan districts noticed omission in mentioning national identity card numbers in the voters' lists. Apart from this, there were other faults visible in the voters' list including misprinting, which created problems for the voters as well as polling staff.
Even the election symbols were not printed on the ballot papers of some candidates. The polling staff was directed by the presiding officers to mention the national identity card numbers on the counter-file of the ballot papers but on the contrary there was no column provided in the polling document for this purpose.
The presiding officer of polling station No 3/F of Sahiwal City admitted flaws in the voters' lists regarding omission in lists. She also admitted that she has so far received more than 15 complaints in this regard. There were also complaints that some voters were allowed to cast votes on production of Nikahnama and matriculation certificate.
The presiding officer of polling station No 4 of Pakpattan City, said that there was no column on counter-file of the ballot paper for mentioning NIC number of voter as per directions of the election commission of Pakistan (ECP).
Most of the ruling party backed candidates contested elections with symbol of crescent, while the PPPP backed candidates were allotted hockey as election symbol in Sahiwal district.
The District Returning Officer, Dr Riaz Mahmood told newsmen that 947 polling stations were set up in the Sahiwal district for 978,266 voters out of whom 952,114 were Muslim voters and 26,152 non-Muslim voters.
He said that Sahiwal district was comprised of 121 union councils, while Sahiwal tehsil had 68 union councils. 'We strictly followed the criteria set by the election commission of Pakistan to set up one polling station for about 1,000 voters', he added.
Dr Riaz claimed that elections were being held in a fair, free and transparent manner. The polling stations were categorised as A, B and C for most sensitive, less sensitive and non-sensitive areas, respectively. There were 163, 158 and 626 polling stations under A, B and C category polling stations, respectively, he added.
The voters' turnout in Sahiwal City remained considerably low between 20-25 percent. Giving reasons of poor turnout, the polling agents said that the polling stations were set up at distant place, which caused hardships for the candidates in bringing the voters to the polling stations. The polling agents were of the view that voters could not come to the polling stations due to hot weather condition.
There were also complaint of rigging at polling station No 12 of Pakpattan City, as five ballot papers were found from the possession of a polling agent. On a complaint, the police reached the spot and initiated necessary action.
There were also complaints regarding delay in provision of voters' list to the polling staff. The polling could not be started in time in some union council due to non-provision of voters' lists.
There were 683,726 registered voters in Pakpattan district out of whom 360,928 were male voters and 322,808 female voters. As many as 640 polling stations were set out of which 142 each were for male and female voters, while 356 polling stations were combined for male and females. As many as 4,460 candidates were in the run in Pakpattan district.
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