Preparations under way for LB polls in all cantonment boards

Authorities have scheduled the elections for Sep 9

RAWALPINDI:

Preparations have begun for holding local government elections in all 42 cantonment boards across the country.

Election authorities have announced September 9 schedule for holding polls in cantonment boards.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has also issued a formal notification about increasing the wards of Taxila and Kamra cantonment boards from two to five each. After the increase, the total number of wards of country-wide cantonment boards has risen to 223 wards.

There are 20 cantonment boards in Punjab, 11 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, eight in Sindh and four in Balochistan. There are a total of five cantonment boards in the Rawalpindi district. They are Rawalpindi, Chaklala, Wah Cantt, Taxila and Murree.

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With an increase of33,000 votes, the total number of votes in all these cantonment boards has surged to 1,849,424 in the last five years.

There are 10 wards in each 14 cantonment boards across Pakistan. These cantonments are Rawalpindi, Chaklala, Wah Cantt, Lahore Cantt, Walton, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Multan, Bahawalpur, Panu Aqil, Hyderabad, Faisal, Clifton and Faisalabad. While 14 cantonment boards — Murree, Attock, Sanjwal, Jhelum, Mangla, Kharian, Manohra, Korangi, Charat, Mardan, Bannu, DI Khan, Havelian, Zhob, Loralai — have two wards each.

The cantonment boards in Taxila, Kamra, Okara, Sialkot, Peshawar, Abbottabad, and Quetta have seven wards, cantonment boards of Karachi, Malir, Risalpur, and Kohat have three while Nowshera consisted of four wards.

Officials said that preparations for elections will be wrapped up in the next couple of weeks and all types of new recruitments, transfer and posting will be banned in all cantonment boards soon the election schedule is released in the first week of July.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2021.