ECP asks Punjab government to probe stopping of PPP convoy

Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has issued directives to the Punjab caretaker government to hold an inquiry into the incident of alleged stopping of election convoy of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari at Uch Sharif.
In a statement on Monday, the Commission said if the provincial government finds flaws in the conduct of local officers, the Commission will take action against the responsible.
The PPP leaders in their letters to the ECP had accused certain police officials of obstructing the election campaign of the PPP.
Separately, the ECP announced to set up 1,865 polling stations in the 12 National Assembly constituencies of the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). According to the commission, 1,058 polling stations will be combined, 455 for male and 352 for females.
The commission made all necessary logistic arrangements for ensuring to hold the upcoming general election on July 25. The logistic exercises are of two kinds including sensitive and non-sensitive. Sensitive logistic exercise involves ballot papers while non-sensitive includes deployment of official staff, formation of district monitoring teams (DMT), bags, pens, indelible ink and stamps in bulk.
For the non-sensitive, the commission is engaging the 750,000 work force from the federal and provincial departments to hold the upcoming polls.
The process of printing of 220 million ballot papers for the general election 2018 will be completed by July 20. The commission has prepared a plan for dispatch of ballot papers to around 85,000 polling stations across the country well before the polling day. The ballot papers will be dispatched to far-flung areas of Balochistan through planes. The paper being used for ballots carrying all security features was imported from abroad.
The process of transportation of ballot paper from Karachi is underway through C-130 planes, Pakistan International Airlines aircraft and trucks. Pakistan Army has been providing security to the Printing Corporation of Pakistan and other places during printing of the ballot papers.
The ECP on Saturday last issued directives to halt the printing of ballot papers for NA-127 and NA-14, constituencies of Maryam Nawaz and Captain Safdar Awan (retd) who were barred by the accountability court from contesting the July polls.