The big day: NA-246 all set for polling today

Election staff and law enforcers spend the night at polling stations to finalise arrangments

KARACHI:

The law enforcers and election commission staff had a rough night. They spent the night in the polling stations where they have been deployed, keeping a vigilant eye over the ballot papers and other material that was entrusted to them by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday.

The ballot boxes, papers, and bags were brought to the 213 polling stations in the NA-246 constituency in passenger buses, amid tight security. The presiding officers of each polling station received the material from the District Central deputy commissioner’s office.

Though polling does not officially commence until 8am, the polling staff must wake up before 6am to prepare the polling booths and finalise the arrangements before the process commences. The staff show the empty ballot boxes to the representatives of the candidates before polling starts. “The ballot papers are provided according to the number of votes registered at the polling station,” explained the provincial election commissioner Tanveer Zaki, adding that each ballot book contains 100 ballot papers and if 1,350 votes are registered at a polling station, it is provided with 14 books.

‘Still complaining’

While the polling staff is working round-the-clock to ensure the elections go smoothly, political parties on Wednesday expressed reservations over the impartiality of the 213 presiding officers and their assistants. Around 1,917 election staff has been deployed at the polling stations, a majority of whom are drawn from federal government departments such as the Karachi Port Trust (KPT), Pakistan Steel Mill, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Income Tax and Pakistan Post. The PTI, JI and Pasban-e-Pakistan have expressed misgivings about the partiality of the staff as they claim that a number of trade union activists of the MQM are employed in the KPT and the Steel Mill and have been included as staff. “A number of times, we requested to summon staff members from outside Karachi so that there would be no chance of influencing the polls, but the provincial election commission did not heed our requests,” said PTI candidate Imran Ismail.

For his part, Zaki refuted the allegations and said that the appointment of staff had been made purely on merit. “Initially, they [candidates] objected to the Sindh government, local government and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation employees and demanded federal government employees. We have excluded these employees from the list, but they are still complaining,” he said.

MQM candidate Kanwar Naveed Jameel said the allegations being leveled by his opponents proved that they had already accepted their defeat. “No MQM worker has been appointed as presiding officer or his assistant,” he said.

Rangers are watching

If anyone feels there will be foul play in the by-polls, they need not worry for the Rangers have taken it in their hands to make it a transparent process. On Wednesday, the Sindh Rangers Major General Bilal Akbar visited some of the polling stations to review the security arrangements. Rangers deputy DG Brigadier Imran Munawar, speaking at a meeting at the CM House, said the paramilitary force was present in all 213 polling stations. “We will keep a vigilant eye on every voter to ensure that the ballot papers are not taken out,” he said.

According to sources, the Rangers DG and senior police officials, including the Sindh IGP Ghulam Hyder Jamali and Karachi Additional IG Ghulam Qadir Thebo will likely be making rounds at the polling stations today (Thursday).

CCTV cameras have already been installed at all the polling stations while the Rangers have set up a monitoring room at the Central deputy commissioner’s office.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2015.