LAHORE - Punjab Chief Secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani on Saturday issued directives to take stern action against violators of ECP code of conduct.

“Government servants, who have affiliations with political parties and those who remained absent from election duty would be punished,” the chief secretary said while presiding over a meeting on election arrangements at Civil Secretariat.

He said holding of free, fair and transparent election is a priority and all possible cooperation would be extended to the ECP for achieving this objective.  He directed that a report regarding implementation of code of conduct and action over violation be submitted on a regular basis.

He ordered the Prisons IG 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.  The additional chief secretary told the meeting that the section 144 has been imposed in the province from June 29 to July 28 to maintain law and order. He said that under section 144, there would be a ban on display of arms, wall-chalking, misuse of loudspeaker and hate speech etc. 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.