پی کے 90 چترال 2 کے 7 انتخابی حلقوں میں 13 اپریل 2014 سے دوبارہ انتخابات ہونگے۔۔۔ الیکشن کمیشن
ISLAMABAD: The inordinate delay in holding re-election at seven controversial polling stations of PK-90 Chitral-II has left the people of the constituency bewildered, without any representative in the provincial assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The constituency has been left without an MPA after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) suspended the membership of Ghulam Muhammad, the former MPA, on the directives of an election tribunal on December 12.
The election tribunal ordered re-polling at seven polling stations of the said constituency after recounting of rejected and postal ballots in response to a petition filed by Sardar Hussain of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), who had lost May 11, 2013 election with just seven votes.
However, the ECP did not pay any heed to the plight of the people for about two and half months and finally announced the re-election schedule on February 18. According to ECP election schedule, the re-polling will be held on April 13, which has left the inhabitants in a catch-22 situation.
“The commission is pleased to observe that since April 13 (Sunday) was fixed on the report and recommendation of (district returning officer) DRO, Chitral, provincial election commission and Election Commission of Pakistan, therefore, the re-polling will be held on April 13, 2014,” said the ECP notification.
Talking to this correspondent over phone from Chitral, people belonging to different walks of life castigated the ECP decision, saying re-polling in seven constituencies in mid-April without any valid reason was beyond comprehension.
They said that the total number of voters in the seven polling stations esd hardly 4,000, of which the total turnout could be hardly 2,000-2,500 as some people were not present in the area while a few might not turn up.
“Had it been some urban constituency, the ECP would not have taken the matter so lightly… delaying tactics on the part of the ECP speaks volumes of its incompetence,” flayed one Afzal Aman.
Some locals even went to the extent of saying that the people of Chitral were being punished for voting for former president Gen Pervez Msuharraf as the suspended MPA Ghulam Muhammad had clinched the seat on the ticket of APML.
They said that the member National Assembly from Chitral Shehzada Iftikharuddin, who won the seat on APML ticket, was receiving step motherly treatment from PML-N led federal government.
The Prime Minister had time to go on a recreational trip to the deserts of Cholistan, but he had no time to pay a visit to Chitral despite several requests made by the MNA, they lamented.
Published in Business Recorder 20 02 2014