Local govt polls likely to be delayed yet again

Police say busy in flood-relief operations

KARACHI:

Following torrential rains and calamitous floods, the Sindh government has come up with another excuse to delay local government elections in the two urbanised divisions of the province - Karachi and Hyderabad.

The Local body elections in Karachi and Hyderabad seem to be postponed for the third time. The main reason behind the likely delay in the elections is the refusal of the Sindh police to personnel for the security of the polling process.

Bogged down in flood-relief operations, the Sindh police claim that they are short of security personnel and logistic facilities.

The local body elections in Karachi Division are scheduled on October 23, however, the Sindh police have requested the home department again to postpone the election for a period of three months.

The police chief has submitted in writing to the home department that the police and other security officials are busy providing relief to the flood affectees and it would not be possible to call in police from other cities of Sindh for the elections.

The police department claimed at least 39,000 policemen are required for the local government elections and there is a shortfall of more than 16,000 officials in the required number.

The second phase of LG polls in Sindh was originally scheduled to be held on July 24. Just days before the scheduled date, the polls were pushed for a month due to incessant monsoon rains in the province. For the third time, following the request of the provincial government, the election commission again pushed the election from August 28 to October 23.

The letter said that the division has a number of 12,465 local officials while 10,000 officials are serving in the provincial capital city of Sindh from the other units. The letter further reads that majority of the police personnel are engaged in relief work operations in the flood-affected areas.

 

.Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2022.