Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is sticking to its earlier date of May for finalisation of the voter lists, with the deadline given by the Supreme Court expiring this Saturday, it was learnt. Sources within the ECP on Wednesday told Business Recorder that the Commission was unable to meet the deadline given by the apex court, which is going to expire on February 25 (Saturday).
However, they said that the ECP had forwarded 0.85 billion preliminary electoral rolls to National Database Registration Authorities (NADRA) for verification. They said that NADRA was expected to complete the process within a week and hence the commission would also be able to publish the preliminary electoral rolls after the verification process.
An official of the ECP said that after completion of the NADRA verification, these lists would be displayed at around 50,000 display centers in 129 districts of all the provinces for 21 days in March for the purpose of receiving complaints against these electoral rolls and making corrections. The preliminary electoral rolls would be displayed in 44 districts of Punjab, 26 districts of Sindh, 29 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 30 districts of Balochistan, he added.
The official further said that during the period new voters who were missing in the lists would also register themselves in display centers across the country where over 65,000 trained officials of the ECP would be available for correcting mistakes and registering new voters.
According to the official, the whole process till printing of the final electoral rolls would be finalised by mid May. So far, the source said that the ECP had added 37 million new voters to the new electoral rolls. The apex court had given February 25 as final deadline to the ECP to purge the bogus voters and finalise the new electoral rolls. Earlier, the ECP stated that it had registered 40.95 million voters in Punjab, 10.93 million in Sindh, 10.2 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 3.3 million in Balochistan, 1.68 million in Federally Administered Tribal Areas while 0.791 million voters had been added to the preliminary electoral rolls.