ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Tuesday ordered re-polling in PK-95, Lower Dir, where women were denied their right to vote allegedly by political parties last month. The electoral body took this decision after taking suo moto notice of media reports and general public that women were denied exercising their right to vote.The ECP had issued a strong statement cautioning against a bid to stop women from voting in the May 30 local bodies elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The warning by and large helped discourage the likely trend in some parts of the province. Returning officers had held meetings with elders of some areas, motivating them to encourage and facilitate female voters to come out and cast their votes. The bye-polls in Lower Dir were held on May 7 and on the same day, media carried reports of blacking out of the female voters from polling exercise. The forum met here at the Election Commission Secretariat and heard the case. The commission consisted of Chief Election Commissioner Justice (R) Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan, Justices (R) Riaz Kayani, Fazlur Rehman and Shahzad Akbar Khan. Returned candidate Izazul Mulk and several other political activists, including Awami National Party’s senior leader Bushra Gohar were also present during the hearing.In this constituency, there are 53,000 registered female voters and under an alleged understanding they were barred from casting their votes and this was largely attributed to a tradition. The Jamaat-e-Islami’s Izazul Mulk had returned from the constituency while the ANP’s Haji Sardar Bahadur was runner up in the by-election. The KP-95 had fallen vacant after the JI amir Sirajul Haq was elected member of the Senate and quit as MPA. Apart from approaching the Peshawar High Court, several females had moved the Election Commission, urging for declaring the electoral exercise in KP-95 as null and void and holding polling afresh.
