As all the political parties have geared up their election campaigns and thousands of candidates are in the field, the Punjab government has clamped section 144 till 28th July 2018 to maintain law and order in the province during the general elections. Under section 144, there would be a ban on display of arms, wall-chalking, misuse of loudspeaker and hate speech etc.
This was stated by Additional Chief Secretary Home in a meeting presided over by Chief Secretary Punjab Akbar Hussain Durrani to review arrangements for general elections 2018, The Chief Secretary said that holding of free, fair and transparent elections is a priority and all possible cooperation would be extended to the Election Commission of Pakistan for achieving this objective.
He directed that a report regarding implementation of code of conduct and action over violation be submitted on regular basis. He ordered the Inspector General of Prisons to take necessary steps to enable prisoners to cast their vote. He also issued instructions to Additional Chief Secretary Home to make functional central control room for monitoring of elections.
He ordered the authorities to take stern action over violation of code of conduct issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan. He said the government servants, who have affiliations with political parties and those who remained absent from election duty would be punished.
The provincial election commissioner Punjab briefed the meeting about polling stations, polling scheme and printing of ballot papers. He said that government servants can apply to returning officers of their constituency for getting postal ballots.
He said that the Election Commission would consider only those cases of transfers and postings that would be sent through Chief Secretary. The meeting was attended by secretaries of different departments including Local Government, Schools Education, Higher Education and officers concerned.
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