ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday said that the government of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had not yet met certain legal requirements in line with holding local government elections and stressed upon the federal and provincial governments to remove constitutional and legal hitches for the timely conduct of LG polls.
In a top-level meeting presided over by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja and attended by the provincial election commissioners and other senior officers of the ECP, the electoral body reviewed preparations for LG elections in all the provinces.
The ECP management was briefed that despite repeated reminders Punjab government has not yet issued Punjab Local Government Election Rules in the absence of which the Provincial Election Commission (PEC) in Punjab is facing problems in making preparations for LG polls at the upper tier including metropolitan, municipal corporation, municipal committees, town committees and tehsil councils, the Commission said in a statement.
Likewise, despite reminders, the KP government did not notify certain provisions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government (Amendment) Act, 2019, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Council Rules, 2019, which is a hurdle in making preparations for LG elections in the province, the statement further said.
The KP government has also not provided the relevant data in the seven divisional headquarters related to the city local councils' limits, the number of village and neighbourhood councils and category-wise number of seats due to which delimitation exercise could not be started in these districts, it added. The Commission said that the delimitation exercise in Punjab and KP is underway and the final lists of delimited constituencies would be publically issued on October 25, 2020, instead of October 13, 2020, the date the Commission had fixed earlier.
The electoral body has also sought suggestions from PECs of Punjab and KP regarding the appointment of district returning officers, returning officers and assistant returning officers and directed them to prepare a list of draft polling stations as soon as the delimitation exercise is completed.
In Sindh, the ECP said it can face problems in the delimitation of constituencies since the provincial government has yet not provided the relevant data of all the districts, sought by the ECP, regarding maps of revenue limits of the districts and related data.
In Balochistan, where the delimitation exercise is on a halt on the orders of Balochistan High Court, the ECP directed the PEC Balochistan to write to the provincial government to take steps for legislation to resolve the issue regarding certain provisions in Balochistan Local Government Act, 2010, being in collision with Elections Act, 2017, in order to remove hurdles for holding LG elections.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020