LB polls: ECP announces new dates for Sindh, Punjab

Polls will be held on February 23 in Sindh and on March 13 in Punjab.

Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced new dates for local bodies elections in Punjab and Sindh on Wednesday, Express News reported.

The elections in Sindh will be held on February 23 instead of January 18 while in Punjab they will be held on March 13 instead of January 30.

The polls have been delayed a number of times before but the ECP had finally submitted before the Supreme Court last month that elections in Sindh and Punjab will be held on Jan 18 and Jan 30, respectively.

On January 6, instead of announcing the schedule, the commission had approached the Supreme Court for assistance over the issue of holding the local bodies elections in Sindh and Punjab.

“We have filed an application before the Supreme Court,” a senior ECP official had told The Express Tribune.

The application has requested the court for an opportunity to submit the ECP’s point of view in the Sindh government’s case fixed for January 8, he had added.

On January 4, the Sindh government had challenged the Sindh High Court (SHC) ruling against the delimitation process. The SHC ruling was challenged at the Karachi Registry of the apex court and the matter has been fixed for hearing on January 8 in Islamabad.

“We will ask the court to guide us,” the senior ECP official had stated, adding, “along with the situation of the SHC decision we will also apprise the court of the Lahore High Court (LHC) judgment.”

In view of both high court judgments, ECP’s application had said that the Punjab Local Government Act, 2013 and Sindh Government Act, 2013 have to be amended by the respective province and fresh delimitation has to be carried out in light of the courts’ rulings.

Responding to a question, the official had replied, “We will tell the court that holding of elections in the given circumstances is not possible as per the [previous] schedule.”