Refuting a report published in a section of the press, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Sindh General Secretary Taj Haider clarified on Monday that Sindh has 10.93 million voters out of 81 million in the NADRA-prepared Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) voters’ lists, which are going to be exhibited at 1,500 different places all over the country. Haider said Sindh, having 25 percent of the national population, should logically have more than 20 million voters. The proportion of the above 18 years population in the province is also more than the national average due to the immigration of workers from other provinces. It is clear from these figures that about 50 percent of voters in Sindh have been disenfranchised by the ECP through NADRA. “It is unimaginable that millions of voters in Sindh can go to the display centres to verify their names during the 21 days allowed for public scrutiny,” he said. “The people’s government waived off the fee for making NICs in order to restore the basic right of vote of the marginalised sections of the society. It appears from the published figures that the poor in Sindh have been ruthlessly disenfranchised,” he added. Haider said that reliable voters’ lists were the first step towards fair elections and demanded that the ECP should first satisfy that all genuine voters have been included in lists before displaying them. Haider also demanded that the lists should be put on an especially designated website in order to facilitate the general public, political parties and NGOs in having the errors removed from them.
