All set for polling day, says election commissioner

KARACHI:

The Provincial Elction Commission has completed all arrangements to hold fair, free and transparent elections on 61 National as well as 130 Provincial Assemblies general seats in Sindh.

This was stated by Provincial Election Commissioner Sindh Sharifullah and Joint Election Commissioner Nazar Abbas while addressing a joint press conference here at the PEC office on Monday.

Sharifullah said a apart from 61 general seats of the National Assembly and 130 of the Sindh Assembly, polls will be held on 14 reserved seats of women in the National Assembly, 29 reserved seats of women and nine seats of minorities in the Sindh Assembly.

PEC said and added that all arrangements were in the final stage and "now we are preparing for the polling day."

He informed that ballot papers have been delivered to all districts while bags are ready which will be delivered to the polling staff on February 7.

All District Returning Officers have devised a transportation plan from where ballot papers wil l be dispatched and after completion of the polling and counting process, the ballot papers will be taken back to the points already notified by the DROs, Sharifullah said.

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He said that all facilities for the Returning Officers were provided at the designated points where results will be announced.

He said with the support of the provincial caretaker government, a security plan was devised and the CCTV cameras would be installed at all highly sensitive polling stations.

He said the bags containing polling material would be handed over to the presiding officers on February 7 and they will be taken to the polling stations.

Sharifullah said on February 08, polling would start at about 8 am and then presiding officers would return to the same point from where they departed to the polling station and hand over the bags and results to the returning officers concerned.

Joint Election Commissioner Nazar Abass informed that in Sindh 6,524 polling stations were declared as highly sensitive and the District Returning Officers will be responsible for all security issues in consultation with the security forces. He said Police and Rangers personnel would be deployed at all highly sensitive polling stations while Army soldiers would be deployed where the District Administration deemed it necessary. APP