ECP suspends transfer of Sindh chief secretary, Printing Corporation’s MD
islamabad — The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Sunday ordered the suspension of transfers of Sindh Chief Secretary Ijaz Chaudhry and Managing Director of Printing Corporation of Pakistan Sajjad Saleem Hotiana.
Earlier, the ECP took notice of their transfer.
Meanwhile, candidates staged protests in Kandhkot and Sukkur cities of Sindh over local administration’s failure to ensure availability of nomination papers for the local bodies elections.
Earlier on Saturday, the ECP started printing nomination papers for the upcoming Local Government (LG) elections in Sindh and Punjab.
The local bodies’ elections will be held on November 27 in Sindh and on December 7 in Punjab.
According to the schedule issued by the ECP, nomination papers would be received on 11th and 12th of this month.
Objections against nomination papers can be filed on 13th while scrutiny would take place from 16th to 18th of this month.
Key meeting today
Meanwhile, the Election Commission will hold an important meeting today (Monday) regarding holding of Local Government elections.
The meeting, which will be at- tended by high officials of Nadra (National Database and Registration Authority) and Printing Corporation of Pakistan, would deliberate over key issues like ballot papers, magnetic ink, and holding of LG election on party basis in Punjab.
Election Commission sources informed Online, that the biggest problem facing the ECP was to ensure availability of 520 million ballot papers required within a minimum possible of time.
The Cabinet Division has already been conveyed the need for these 520 million ballot papers by the ECP, but things seem to be heading for a crash as government sources seem unable to comply with ECP’s demand.
The sources also informed Online that the Printing Corporation has requested a 4-month period for printing that much of papers, while the PCSIR (Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) has sought a similar time-frame for the supply of magnetic ink and ink pads likely to be used for elections.
Papers filed in Quetta
As many as 179 candidates filed their nomination papers for 134 seats in Quetta as the phase of submission of candidature for the forthcoming local government election in Balochistan con- cluded on Saturday.
The process remained continued till 4pm on Saturday evening. The nomination papers were submitted in the offices of Additional Deputy Commissioner Revenue, AC City, AC Sadar, and District Education.
The elections in Balochistan will be held for one metropolitan, four municipal corporations and 634 union councils.
Media reports said final lists of the candidates will be issued by the Election Commission on November 19 after the phases of objections, scrutiny and appeals are completed.
PPP contacts ANP
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has contacted the Awami National Party (ANP) for an alliance for the forthcoming local bodies elections in Sindh, media quoting sources reported on Sunday.
Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah made an offer to ANP’s Sindh president senator Shahi Syed to form the alliance for the LG elections over telephone.
Following the PPP’s offer, the ANP has called a party meeting at Mardan House for consultation.
According to the sources, a delegation of PPP will also visit Mardan House to meet ANP leaders to further discuss the possibilities of an alliance .