Provincial Election Commission has been flooded with complaints regarding polling stations, violation of code of conduct and unavailability of voters' lists. Over 50 complaints regarding the number of polling stations and their locations have been registered from all over the province, officials in the Sindh EC Sindh told Business Recorder here on Monday.
Confirming the flow of complaints, Provincial Election Commissioner Chaudhry Qamaruzzaman said that complaints were being received from all the 23 districts of the province. When inquired about the exact number of complaints being lodged by the political parties and independent candidates, he said that it would be difficult to give total number of complaints at this moment.
"However, we are preparing and compiling the number of these complaints." He said. Zaman said that the complaints relating to the location of the polling stations were being referred to the Deputy Election Commissioner of the concerned districts. All the complaints would be dealt with as per law and provision of the Election Commission, he added.
The complaints of violation of code of conduct were being referred to district returning officers (DROs) with the instructions to ensure adherence to guidelines. About the absence of voters' lists the Provincial Election Commissioner said that every candidate could obtain the copy of voters' lists from the offices of concerned DROs.
Meanwhile, scrutiny process of the nomination papers filed by independent candidates or those belonging to various political parties for general seats in provincial and National assemblies completed on Monday evening.
Over 970 forms were submitted only for the 42 seats of Sindh assembly and 20 for National assembly seats from Karachi, while over 2,000 papers were filed all over from the province against 129 seats of provincial assembly and 39 for National assembly seats. The scrutiny of all the papers filed has been completed, officials of Sindh EC said.
List of Karachi candidates would be released Tuesday, while of Sindh could be released on Wednesday, Zaman said, adding that large number of papers submitted caused delay in preparation of the scrutinised lists. From Tuesday, two appellate benches, comprising judges of Sindh High Court, would start hearing cases of the candidates whose papers were rejected during the scrutiny process.