Govt, ECP file pleas against IHC order to conduct LG polls in Islamabad

Govt, ECP file pleas against IHC order to conduct LG polls in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – The federal government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday filed an intra-court appeals in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) against the verdict of its single-member bench for holding the local government elections in the capital city on Dec 31. 

The top election body has made the Jamat-e-Islami and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders respondents in the case. However, the IHC registrar office raised an objection to the ECP appeal, saying that relevant documents need to be attached with it.

The lawyer of the ECP has re-submitted the petition after removing the objections raised by the registrar office. 

On Friday, the IHC ordered the ECP to conduct the LG election as per schedule. Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir issued the order while hearing a petition of the PTI and JI against the election body’s verdict to delay the polls “for the time being” due to government’s decision to increase the number of union councils (UCs). Following the verdict, the ECP convened an emergency meeting on Friday night when it was told that more than 14,000 members of the polling staff were teachers and employees of other departments and they were on winter vacation, hence making it difficult to conduct the election. 

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Friday though the government respected court’s ruling, the local government elections would not be possible before four months. Speaking to the media, Mr Sanaullah claimed that there were already threats in Islamabad due to a suicide bombing in the I-10 area a few days back. 

Speaking about the LG polls arrangement, he said that making the arrangement of 1,000 polling stations on an immediate basis was not possible. He said it would take at least 10 months to hold the general election -- likely in October.