The National Assembly was informed on Thursday that around 37 million bogus voters would be removed from the list of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) following the introduction of computerised voting system in the country.
Replying to a question on behalf of Law Minister, Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khursheed Shah said that the Election Law (Amendment) Bill, 2011 recently passed by Senate and National Assembly would be sent to the President on Thursday (April 28) for his signature to make it an Act of the Parliament, which he termed as historic success of the Parliament, adding that the bill will help in complete elimination of rigging and bogus voting in election.
In the meantime, Acting Speaker National Assembly Faisal Karim Kundi said that the upcoming general elections would be held in 2013. Shah further said that computerised voter list would contain picture, name, identity card number and thumb impression of the voter, while the formula of "One-man, One-vote" would be applied for the upcoming general elections.
Earlier, in a written reply to the House, Law Minister Moula Bakhsh Chandio told the House that the ECP was preparing computerised electoral rolls in collaboration with National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) for the forthcoming general elections as well as local government polls.
He said that computerised electoral rolls would be finally published by the end of this year and will be according to the standards set by the national and international community for conducting free and fair elections. He said that the electoral rolls would contain accurate date of each voter and would also help eliminate duplication and casting of bogus votes. He said that the voters' list was being prepared according to the new census blocks adopted by the Census Organisation during the house-to-house counting.
Meanwhile, in a written reply to the House, the Law Minister said that the ECP was considering insertion of a new column in the nomination paper form for parliamentarians to obtain information of dual nationality of the candidates in future election.
However, he told that the House that the data of dual nationality of the parliamentarians was unavailable, adding that currently the ECP has no data with regard to dual nationality of members of the Parliament and provincial assemblies, as there was no column of dual nationality in the nomination papers prescribed under the law.