ECP postpones LB polls in Sanghar

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in its meeting on Saturday decided to postpone polling in Sanghar and ordered deployment of two companies of the Pakistan Army, Rangers and the police in Badin, which is being feared as a potential trouble spot in view of upcoming local bodies polls.
Presently, these two companies are deployed in Sanghar.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (R) Sardar Muhammad Raza chaired the meeting here at the Election Commission Secretariat and took up a plethora of complaints, received particularly from Sindh, while reviewing the law and order situation and arrangements for the second phase of the local bodies polls.
The Election Commission members (ECMs), chief secretary Sindh, inspector general police Sindh, Home Department Sindh, district returning officers concerned and senior officers of the Election Commission of Pakistan attended the meeting.
As compared to Punjab, some of the districts of Sindh face possibility of violence and reaction to the massacre of 12 persons in Khairpur during the first phase of the local bodies election is also being anticipated.
The IGP had requested for the deployment of the Army personnel at 614 polling stations of district Sanghar.
However, the forum instead decided to postpone the proposed polling and deploy the security forces in Badin, where local politician and former provincial minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, his spouse and ex-speaker NA Dr Fehmida Mirza face serious threats in connection with the electoral exercise.
Likewise, the Election Commission asked the district returning officer Badin to replace all the returning officers, presiding officers and polling staff, who have any relation with a political party or a candidate, replacing them with impartial personnel.
The DROs of Tharparkar and Mirpurkhas were asked to rationalise those polling stations, which are inconsistent and incoherent with the polling stations established in 2013 General Elections.
They were further directed to call all the complainants within two days and address their grievances in a manner acceptable to all the candidates and political parties.
The chief election commissioner, after his opening remarks, informed the participants that the Election Commission was in receipt of number of complaints from different candidates and political parties about the role of DROs/ROs, change of polling stations, non-provision of list of polling stations by the DROs/ROs and appointment of partial polling staff. Besides, there were number of requests for deployment of Pakistan Army and Rangers.
He said the Election Commission had taken a serious view of these complaints and that the sole purpose of this meeting was to redress these complaints in the manner that all political parties and candidates should be provided a level playing field in the local government elections.