Delimitation of constituencies of NA, 4 PAs will be completed by Aug 3: ECP

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Tuesday said as per the schedule, the delimitation of constituencies of the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies will be completed by August 03 this year.

The ECP has arranged training for the delimitation committees. The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Sikandar Sultan Raja, will meet the delimitation members and will direct them not to come under any influence or pressure while carrying out their job.

In this connection, the CEC presided over the Election Commission’s meeting here and apart from members of the Election Commission, Secretary Election Commission and other senior officers also attended the meeting, whereas the Provincial Election Commissioners of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also participated in the meeting through video link.

The meeting was briefed on the delimitation work prior to receiving the necessary maps and other data from all the provinces by the end of this week. The ECP was briefed in detail about the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and overseas voting and the meeting was informed that the Project Management Unit (PMU) was working diligently on the EVMs and overseas voting.

The meeting was told that the expression of interest has been published in various newspapers on 12th April, 2022 to check the availability and quality of electronic voting machine.

The deadline for submission of papers was April 15, 2022: seven companies have submitted (Expression of Interest); these companies will give a detailed briefing on their products to the ECP in May 2022, after which the ECP will start working on the Pilot Project and Operational Feasibility with selected companies.

The ECP directed the PMU officials to complete the work on this project as soon as possible so that the ECP could take necessary steps in this regard. The ECP has also set up a state-of-the-art research wing R&D in collaboration with cyber security specialists where experiments and systems on overseas voting in different countries are being studied and observed and work is also being done on various options given by NADRA on overseas voting. The safest and easiest of all these options will soon be pilot tested.

The ECP was briefed on the progress of the work of reviewing the electoral rolls. The ECP directed the Provincial Election Commissioners to closely monitor this work and ensure its satisfactory completion. The meeting reviewed arrangements made so far for holding local bodies elections in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.

The ECP expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made so far and directed the Special Secretary to monitor all arrangements on a daily basis, especially timely printing of electoral rolls and provision of districts and report to the Election Commission to ensure timely completion of all election arrangements.