ECP sources told Geo News that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has completed all preparations for holding local body elections in Karachi and Hyderabad on January 15.
Sources say that the reserved decision on MQMP’s petition against dual voter lists will be pronounced tomorrow. An ECP bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja reserved the verdict on Friday.
Sources say that the Election Commission has completed all preparations for local body elections in Karachi and Hyderabad, rejecting the allegations of using dual voter lists by MQMP. Municipal elections in Sindh’s two most populous cities will be held on old voter lists.
It should be noted that during the hearing on MQM’s request, the Chief Election Commissioner said that local body elections in Karachi cannot be postponed any more.
Second step
The ECP had told the Sindh government that the second phase of local body elections in Karachi and Hyderabad would be held on July 24, 2022, but then postponed them due to torrential rains and consequent floods in the province.
The electoral body rescheduled the LG polls for August 28, but they were again postponed for the same reason.
The commission had said that most of the polling stations were inaccessible to voters.
On 18 October, the ECP rescheduled the polls for 23 October, but the provincial government demanded that they be postponed by three months as it deployed police in flood-hit areas, causing them to Polling stations had failed to provide the required level of security.
After repeated delays, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) approached the Sindh High Court, which on November 15 asked the ECP to announce the date of local elections within 15 days.
On November 22, the ECP announced January 15 as the new date.
