ECP should ‘learn from Indian counterparts’: report

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LAHORE: The Election Commission of Pakistan has blamed the electronic result system for the glitches after the July 25 polling.

According to a local media report, it states that the ECP should learn a lesson or two from the Indian Election Commission that managed to facilitate 814.5 million voters in 2014.

Moreover, the total number of voters in Pakistan had rested at only 105.96 million, which was 23 per cent higher than the figures for the 2013 elections when the total number of voters had stood at 86.19 million.

During the 2014 Indian general election members of parliament (Lok Sabha) got elected for all 543 constituencies. The average 2014 election turnout in India, overall nine phases was around 66.38 per cent.

On the contrary, in Pakistan, the voter turnout recorded in the July 25 National Assembly elections was 51.85 per cent. Pakistan had recently gone to polls for 849 directly elected seats, including 272 seats for the National Assembly.

A total number of 12,570 candidates had contested the elections for Pakistan’s National Assembly and four provincial assemblies, compared to the 8,251 candidates who had contested the Indian elections under review.

The Indian elections required 1.1 million civil servants and 5.5 million civilian employees to handle the voting exercise.

However, in Pakistan, there were 85,317 polling stations, comprising over 242,000 polling booths, and some 811,491 staffers were deployed for election duties as presiding officers, assistant presiding officers and polling officers, in addition to the 371,000 armed forces personnel who had provided security duties alongside police and other law enforcement agencies.

In addition to that, Indian politicians had alleged that the election was rigged and accused the BJP and its workers of tampering with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Similarly, in 2009 as well BJP alleged that that party did not perform well because the EVMs might have been tampered with. Following this, the Indian Election Commission published a full report stating that the machines were secure and tamper-proof.