Alarm bells: Names of voters missing from new electoral rolls, claims Marwat

The former education minister claims that 9,000 names are missing in the new list.

KARACHI:

Former provincial minister Irfanullah Marwat, who recently joined the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), has joined in the chorus of politicians complaining about the new voters lists issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) – but, with a twist.

Marwat, who spoke about the issue at the Karachi Press Club on Monday, claimed that “the names of 9,000 voters from my constituency, PS-114, who voted in the last elections, are missing from the new list.” He also said that some of the constituency’s voters have registered elsewhere in the city. The PS-114 constituency is currently held by MQM’s Rauf Siddiqui, who is the minister for commerce and industries in Sindh.

“Seven thousand ‘solid votes’ who live in the constituency have been registered elsewhere, on seats meant for Christians,” Marwat said.

According to Marwat, the process of complaining about the fact that a voter’s name or constituency may be wrongly registered with the ECP is also flawed. He alleged that the workers of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) are sitting in the offices where the complaint forms have to be submitted. “Why have they taken over? MQM workers should not be sitting in polling stations. Karachi is not someone’s property,” he said.

He sounded alarm bells that this was “pre-poll rigging” and said that the Pakistan Peoples Party was complicit, but the PML-N would not allow this to stand. He asked the ECP and the Supreme Court to take notice, and also wondered how the commission will be able to make the necessary corrections in the voters list within three weeks, a point that was also raised by legislators in the Sindh Assembly on Monday.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2012.