The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and provinces are heading towards a disagreement over census blocks for holding local body elections.
The provinces want elections to be held on the basis of census block of 1998 and the ECP insists for new census block.
The issue was discussed on Tuesday in a meeting at the ECP Secretariat to discuss progress made by provinces regarding LB polls.
The meeting was chaired by ECP Secretary Ishtiak Ahmed Khan and was attended by provincial secretaries of local bodies, provincial election commissioners, official of NADRA and Census Organisation.
Sources said the ECP officials told the provinces that elections should be held on the basis of new voter lists, which were used in general elections, however, provinces opposed the idea.
These electoral lists were made on the basis of projected population and under which there are 142,000 census blocks while as per 1998 census there are 102,000 census blocks.
Sources said that representatives of provinces requested the ECP to hold elections on the basis of census blocks of 1998 as they were making preparations for holding LB polls on their basis.
However, the ECP representatives told them that they would have to make new voter lists if they accepted the request.
On the other hand, the provinces urged the ECP to hold elections on the old census block otherwise they have to do extra work, which too is a time taking task.
The issue will be discussed today (Wednesday) again as the three-day meeting will continue until Thursday. During the meeting, the provincial election commissioners and provincial secretaries informed the ECP about preparations for LB polls. However, the ECP showed dissatisfaction as there is no uniformity of law among provinces for LB elections and they have not completed delimitation process so far.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan suspended membership of 26 lawmakers for their failure to submit statements of their assets and liabilities.
The commission issued formal notification in this regard, which said 26 lawmakers have been barred from taking part in legislation and getting salaries and other privileges until the restoration of their membership.
The ECP said that whenever suspended lawmakers would submit their assets and liability details their membership would be restored. The lawmakers are Senator Mustafa Kamal, Senator Faisal Raza Abidi, and MNAs Abdul Rehman Khan Kanju, Shah Jahan Baloch and Alizeh Iqbal Haider. Four members of the Punjab Assembly, nine of the Sindh Assemlby, seven from KP and one from the Balochistan Assmbly are also among the suspended members.
There were 40 lawmakers, who failed to submit assets and liability details. However, on Tuesday 14 lawmakers submitted their details.
Earlier, the ECP did not issue a notification until the expiry of deadline – October 15. Under the law, the ECP was required to suspend those lawmakers who had failed to meet the legal requirement in prescribed period. Instead of issuing notification on Monday it kept receiving the details from lawmakers and even on Tuesday it received 14 statements from lawmakers. Finally, it issued the notification of remaining 26 lawmakers.
