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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Army, Rangers to be deployed during LB polls in federal capital

ISLAMABAD: In order to ensure trouble-free local bodies (LB) polls here, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday decided to requisition army personnel to guard 62 highly sensitive buildings in the federal capital besides deployment of Rangers at all the 640 polling stations.Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar

By our correspondents
November 25, 2015
ISLAMABAD: In order to ensure trouble-free local bodies (LB) polls here, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday decided to requisition army personnel to guard 62 highly sensitive buildings in the federal capital besides deployment of Rangers at all the 640 polling stations.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan chaired a meeting at the Election Commission Secretariat here to review the arrangements especially logistics, security issues, printing of ballot papers, etc, with regard to the conduct of the first-ever LB elections in the Islamabad Capital Territory.
Already hearing an application filed by one Mansoor Aziz, who contended that proceedings should be initiated against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan for levelling allegations against the ECP, the judiciary and then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which were never proved, the Election Commission has decided to send a notice to Imran to either appear before the forum or send his lawyer for his viewpoint on December 22.
The ECP members, secretary interior, IGP, Islamabad chief commissioner, MD PCP, DRO Islamabad and senior officers of the ECP attended the meeting. The forum approved the security plan, presented by the IGP, which included the deployment of Rangers personnel at each polling station.
The District Returning Officer (DRO) briefed the ECP about the structure of local government in the ICT, printing of ballot papers and other arrangements made so far in this regard.
The IGP briefed the ECP on the security plan while the chief commissioner highlighted the initiatives and preventive measures taken for the implementation of Code of Conduct issued by the ECP and additional measures adopted for ensuring just, honest and credible elections in Islamabad.
The ECP praised the steps taken by the DRO, IGP and Islamabad administration and after thorough deliberations and considering the proposals of all the participants, decided that the DRO Islamabad shall decide all the complaints about the change of polling stations by November 26, 2015 and no change should be made thereafter.
The DRO will issue instructions to all the Returning Officers (ROs) to re-check the printed ballot papers before receiving to avoid any mistake, missing name and symbols, etc.
The DRO should also ensure that polling at all the 640 polling stations should start timely i.e. at 7am.
Earlier, in his opening remarks, the CEC informed the participants that under Article 218(3) of the Constitution, it was the duty of the ECP to conduct the LB polls in the ICT in a free, fair and transparent manner by providing a level-playing field to all the contesting candidates and political parties.