Local bodies elections: Returning officers, assistants appointed in Rawalpindi

Each RO will be assisted by two AROs.

RAWALPINDI: The district election commission on Tuesday appointed returning officers (ROs) and assistant returning officers (AROs) for the local government elections in cantonment boards in Rawalpindi district, scheduled for April 25.

The local bodies election will be held in five cantonment boards of the district including Rawalpindi, Chaklala, Wah, Murree and Taxila cantonment boards. ROs and AROs also attended a two-day workshop in Islamabad that began on Tuesday, informed an official of district Election Commission.

The cantonment boards comprise of 34 wards, with 10 each in Chaklala, Rawalpindi and Wah cantonments, and two each in Taxila and Murree cantonments.

Each returning officer will be assisted by two AROs in monitoring five wards in Rawalpindi, Chaklala and Wah cantonment boards.

The ROs appointed include Tayyaba Naseer Sindhu, Rawalpindi cantt CEO Faheem Zafar Khan, CEO Rana Khalil Ahmad, Chaklala cantt, Additional CEO Jawwad Aslam Butt, Ramiz Shafqat, additional CEO Rawalpindi cantt, Wah CEO Sajjad Ahmad Khan, CEO Taxila Syed Zaki Haider and CEO Murree Hills Shakil Anwar.

Talking to The Express Tribune, a District Election Commission officer, requesting not be named, said ballot papers would be printed after the polling scheme and voter lists were finalised.

At the same time, he expressed doubt over whether the elections would be held as the government and cantonment authorities were “not being very proactive”.

He elaborated that the number of voters had increased manifold, while the number of wards is unchanged.

He said there are around 2.6 million voters had already been registered in Rawalpindi district, while registration is still under way. “We are trying to finalise the voter lists as soon as possible,” the official said.

Delimitation in Rawalpindi

The district election commissions have not received any direction from their head office, but the official said the delimitation process would begin once elections at cantonment boards were completed.

Without a census, the elections would not be genuine, the official said. “If new census is not held, elections would then have to be carried out on the basis of the 1998 census”.

He further said that delimitation done in Rawalpindi in 2014 was “unreliable” and was annulled by the Lahore High Court.

The district government had increased the number of union councils (UCs) in Rawal Town from 46 to 55, while Potohar Town saw the number of UCs rise from 36 to 39.

Petitions were filed at the Lahore High Court, claiming that the district government had purposely created disparities, as some UCs had as many as 20,000 voters, while others had barely 7,000. The decision forced candidates to wind up their campaign, while the district administration also reverted to the previous number of union councils.

Around 8,784 persons had filed their nomination papers at the time.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2015.