The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday gave a deadline of seven days to the Punjab government to enact the Local Governments (LG) laws other otherwise they will hold local bodies elections based on the previous law in the province.
According to the 24News HD TV channel, a three-member bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja heard the case on the issue of local body elections in Punjab on Tuesday.
During the hearing of the case, the CEC warned the Punjab government that if it will not cooperate with the local body elections, the ECP will pursue a case of contempt of the Supreme Court’s orders.
The ECP Special Secretary told the bench that the term of the local government of Punjab was completed on 31 December 2021 and on April 14, 2022, they released the schedule of elections in Punjab. He informed that the Lahore High Court has given a stay on it while they have made delimitations of constituencies twice so a case of contempt against the Punjab government should be initiated.
On this, the Punjab Chief Secretary adopted a position and said a session of the Punjab Assembly was continuing and the issue of an electronic voting machine is under discussion in the House.
The Chief Election Commissioner remarked that there have been investigations on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the world and only two countries Brazil and India are using it.
He further stated that according to the investigation, if EVMs are imposed in haste, the election will become suspicious and anarchy will spread in the country so they cannot conduct elections on EVMs on such grounds.
The CEC made it clear that now they will not hold any more meetings with the Punjab government and we will send a reference to the Supreme Court that the Punjab government is not conducting elections and disobeying the court orders.
The Election Commission adjourned the hearing of the case till Thursday next week (October 27, 2022).