Zubair Qureshi Islamabad
The Election Commission of Pakistan is ready to hold general elections by the end of October this year and all the necessary arrangements in this regard are being taken on war footing.
The ECP Secretary, Omar Hameed Khan, addressing a press conference on Monday, however, made it clear that though the commission would hold elections yet the decision in this regard had to be taken by the incumbent government.
He said that the final list of voters was posted on October 4, 2020 while the door-to-door verification was completed between November 7 to December 31, 2021, the SMS service was made free from November 26 to December 31, 2021.
Omar said the commission was an independent and autonomous body and its responsibility was to conduct transparent and fair elections.
The Chief Election Commissioner had written to the then PM in 2020 to notify the census so that the commission could initiate new delimitation, but despite writing 17 letters, no reply was received and in May 2021, it was informed that the new census would be held.
The secretary said that the Election Commission of Pakistan was carrying out its work as per the orders of the Supreme Court. A large number of display centres have been set up across the country.
Responding to the EVMs issue, the secretary of ECP said, there were several protocols which needed to be followed for the EVMs and their work on EVMs and overseas voting will continue.
