It’s been almost a month now since the dissolution of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) assemblies, however, no consensus on the election dates has been reached so far.
It is to be noted that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had recommended that the elections be held between April 9 and 17.
On January 27, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) approached the Lahore High Court (LHC), seeking an order for the Punjab governor to immediately announce the date for elections in the province.
Later, the high court directed Punjab Governor Muhammad Baligur Rehman and the ECP — to submit their replies to the court by Feb 10.
In his reply, the Governor stated that he had not created any obstacle for the ECP to announce the election date.
“If the governor did not dissolve the assembly on the so-called advice of the chief minister, then it is not the responsibility of the governor to give the date for the polls,” he said.
No security forces avaible for elections
Another hindrance in holding the election has come forth now as the government has said that it wouldn’t be able to provide full security during elections due to unavailability of personnel.
Earlier this week, ECP had written to the federal government, seeking the deployment of troops of civil armed forces for the conduct of general and by-elections in various constituencies of the national and provincial assemblies.
However, the interior ministry, headed by Rana Sanaullah, informed the ECP that the armed forces would not be able to perform security duties during the provincial assembly elections in Punjab and KP as well as by-elections on 64 National Assembly seats as it was busy conducting census and counter-terror operations.
According to the ministry, both the armed and civil forces are overwhelmed with work on dealing with the threat of terrorism in the country. In addition, the troops are also required to undertake widespread deployment to achieve secure conduct of the census.
