Voting started late at manypolling stations of NA-129

By Jawwad Rizvi
July 26, 2018

LAHORE: Polling in Lahore Cantonment area in NA-129 started late as polling agents of almost all parties reached their respective polling stations late.

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Polling stations administration stopped all those polling agents who failed to present their authority letters to perform their duty as polling agents. Polling at polling stations of 235 and 107 established at Saint Anthony Girls High School started 40 minutes late when the commanding officer of the area Major Mehdi intervened as the voters outside the polling stations standing before 8am got panicked due to delay polling. The presiding officers and other staff of the polling stations reached there and made all required arrangements to start polling timely. However, all political parties’ polling agents did not reach there in time and police officials deployed there stopped them from entering the polling stations. Police officials said they did not have authority letter while the polling agents said they were instructed by their respective political parties’ officials to reach there to perform the duties of polling agents.

However, Major Mehdi reached there when wireless message was transmitted and other senior police officials also reached there. The presiding officers of the polling stations said they could not initiate the process in the absence of polling agents. “We were instructed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to open the ballot bags in the presence of the polling agents

and seal the ballot box in front of them too”. Polling agents did not reach here so we could not start it, they said.

Complaints about late start of polling were found in almost in all polling stations of Lahore Cantonment areas. However, in other polling stations, presiding officers started the polling process with a delay of 5 to 10 minutes after sealing the ballot boxes and opening the ballot bags in the presence of existing staff and army officials.

In polling station number 209, a polling agent of PTI reached the polling station at 10:30 in the presence of this correspondent. The polling agent said he got a call from the party official in the morning to reach to perform the duties of the polling agent. Further, he said he was not trained.

Presiding officers at different polling stations complained about the shortage of staff. They said the staff was untrained while the ECP did not provide required staff for election process. In some place whole polling station was established in a small room where four polling booths, two each for male and female were made. Despite all these issues, polling remained peaceful in the constituency.

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