KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi on Wednesday urged the country’s election commission to hold the local government polls on time, calling the timely election as its “responsibility”.

In a letter to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), JI’s Karachi head, Engr Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman reminded it about its responsibility to go for the local bodies’ election within a set time. He demanded of the ECP to hold the local bodies’ elections immediately in Sindh. Engr Naeem asked the commission to dismiss the delaying moves of the PPP’s provincial government in this connection.

“The ECP should hear the JI’s viewpoint in its next proceeding over the local bodies’ elections in Sindh,” he wrote for permission to appear in the next expected meeting. “We do believe that the ECP by the virtue of the Election Act 2017 and the framework described in the Constitution is bound to hold local bodies’ elections on time,” the JI leader wrote.

As far as the provincial notification for delimitations is concerned, he said, that Clause 221 to Clause 223 of the Election Act 2017 confers complete powers of delimitation to the ECP. Clause 222 of the Act binds the ECP to constitute a committee with the mandate of carrying out the delimitation process with the support of the district revenue department across the ward levels. Under the circumstances, he said, “it was unusual for the ECP shows helplessness against the provincial government when it comes to the process of delimitations”.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021