CEC claims no govt in Punjab willing to conduct LG polls

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja on Tuesday said that no government in Punjab was willing to hold local body elections.

A three-member bench headed by the CEC heard a petition concerning local government elections in Punjab where the special secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said that the constituencies have already been delimited twice in the province and now they have to be delimited a third time.

“A copy of the rolls is required,” he added.

During the hearing, Chief Secretary Punjab Abdullah Khan Sumbal revealed that the demarcation “will be completed soon” and that a separate constituency will be formed for every population of 25,000.

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“The Punjab government should provide us with the required documents,” said the CEC adding that “demarcating for the third time is no laughing matter”.

“If the ECP can conduct the local elections as per the previous rules then the schedule will be issued today in Punjab,” he furthered.

“If local body elections are to be held on the basis of the new law,” he continued addressing the chief secretary, “then please provide us with guarantees”.

“No government is willing to conduct the local body elections,” he added directing the provincial secretary to submit a letter to the Supreme Court on the matter.

However, Sumbal informed the electoral watchdog that “the Punjab Assembly has passed the new bill and it will become law in another 10 days”.

“Let us follow the new law,” he added, “we will follow the timeline”.

Dissatisfied with the explanation, CEC Raja said that “you think elections can be conducted with Electronic Voting Machines [EVMs]” and added that “you are intentionally adding EVMs to create problems”.

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“This is a deliberate [political] stunt,” alleged the CEC as he urged Sumbal to “guide” his “political leadership”.

“We will pass an order regarding local body elections in Punjab,” he added.

It may be noted that delays were expected in the local government elections in the province as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government once again considered scrapping or amending the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Punjab Local Government Act 2022.

After coming into power for a short stint in Punjab, the PML-N Hamza Shehbaz’s government had scraped the PTI’s local government act by introducing its own version of local body law in June.

However, after the fall of the PML-N government as a result of by-elections in 20 constituencies of Punjab, the ruling PTI has once again decided to bring its own version of the local body system in the province.

While the ECP has said that the Punjab government should ensure the holding of local bodies' polls at the earliest, the provincial executives have decided to hold the local body elections in the province under the new local government act.

According to the Punjab Local Government Act 2022, the election for mayor of the metropolitan corporations and District Council in all divisional headquarters, including Rawalpindi, will take place by direct voting.