ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday removed two top officials of the Provincial Election Commission (PEC), Sindh, from their posts- at a time when the ECP is locked in a row with Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Sindh government over electoral body's delimitation plan ahead of local government (LG) elections.
Provincial Election Commissioner Sindh Javed Khan Afridi has been removed from his position and directed to report to the ECP headquarters, Business Recorder has learnt. He has been replaced with Aijaz Anwer Chohan who was performing duties at the ECP headquarters as Additional Director General Local Government Elections -a development that indicates that Afridi's removal is linked to ECP's preparations for LG polls in Sindh.
Joint Provincial Election Commissioner, Sindh, Farid Afridi has also been removed from his position and directed to report to the ECP headquarters, sources said. The reshuffle at top positions in PEC, Sindh, took place just a day after ECP summoned the Sindh government officials on the coming Monday (September 7) in a bid to resolve the row with the provincial government over the issue of delimitation of constituencies for LG elections in Sindh after PPP, the ruling party in the province, has categorically rejected the electoral body's delimitation plan.
On August 31, 2020, the Sindh government formally issued a notification announcing the dissolution of all the elected LG offices in the province on the completion of their four-year term a day earlier. Following this development, the ECP, on the same date, issued the schedule for the delimitation of constituencies ahead of LG elections. However, the PPP has rejected the delimitation plan with party leaders including Nisar Khuhro and Taj Haider having written letters to the electoral body in which they have said that the ECP would commit an unconstitutional step if it goes ahead with its plan to do fresh delimitation and conduct new LG elections in Sindh on the basis of the provisional results of 2017 census, saying that the population of Sindh had been counted less than the actual count in the last population census drive in the country in 2017 and the province did have objections in this regard.
Constitutionally, the ECP is bound to hold delimitation of constituencies on the basis of population as per last population census.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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