RAWALPINDI: The district administration has removed over 19,000 illegal election publicity material including banners, hoardings, steamers and pana-flexes from different areas of the Rawalpindi district, said Sara Hayat, the additional deputy commissioner (general).
Deputy Commissioner/District Monitoring Officer Dr Umer Jahangir has also imposed fine of Rs 25,000 each on six elected representatives of the local bodies on violation of code of conduct issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan for the general elections 2018.
The elected representatives were earlier served show-cause notices for taking part in the election campaigns of different candidates but they did not give any reply of the notice. Fines were imposed on Chaklala Cantonment Board Vice President Raja Irfan Imtiaz, UC-89 Chairman Sheikh Sajid, Cantt Board Ward-8 Member Ch Khurram, UC-84 Chairman Imran Ilyas, UC-21 Vice Chairman Muhammad Hanif and UC-119 Chairman Ali Awan.
Earlier, show-cause notices were also issued to 17 candidates of the National Assembly and four Provincial Assembly for violating election code of conduct. Raja Pervaiz Asharf, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Hanif Abbasi, Malik Abrar, Daniyal Chaudhry, Raja Javed Ikhlas, Raja Qamarul Islam, Abdul Ghafoor Toheedi, Ghulam Sarwar, Shabbir Awan, Raja Jehandad Khan, Amir Mehmood Kiyani, Ch M Azeem, Hina Manzoor, Makhdoom Niaz Inqlabi, Raja Ashfaq Sarwar, Malik Shakil Awan, Faizul Hasan Chohan and Malik M Iftikhar were served show-cause notices as the names and addresses of the printers and publishers were not printed on the publicity material displayed by the candidates which is mandatory under the Section 234 of the code of conduct.
She said that immediate action in accordance with the law was taken on the violations. Most of the violations were of oversize banners, pana-flexes and other publicity material. She said that the district administration on the directive of District Monitoring Officer/DC was making all out efforts to ensure implementation of election code of conduct.
The ACs concerned were removing unapproved size election publicity material from rural and urban areas of the district. She said that action was taken in Rawalpindi city, Kahuta, Murree, Gujar Khan, Kotli Sattian, Taxila, Kalar Syedan and other areas without any discrimination. The campaign would continue and no one would be allowed to violate the rules, she added.
