ISLAMABAD - Tribal elders, former Fata parliamentarians and other stakeholders will jointly chalk out a strategy to convince the Election Commission of Pakistan to conduct elections on provincial assembly seats allocated for tribal areas at the same time polls will be held Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on July 25.
“The tribal elders, former parliamentarians and natives of erstwhile Fata will hold an important meeting after Eid-ul Fitr,” former parliamentarian Sajid Toori told The Nation.
“The demand of people is genuine but the ECP is not holding polls in tribal areas at the same time with the KP province,” he said. Members from the area recently staged a protest outside the ECP office in Islamabad demanding simultaneous elections in tribal areas and KP.
ECP former secretary Kanwar Dilshad said the demand of the tribal people could not be fulfilled due to technical hitches. “At the time of the merger of Fata with KP, the demand for holding elections for 21 seats should have been settled,” he said.
He said that it would take around three more months to complete the process for holding elections on the allocated seats. “Elections in tribal areas could not be held in July because of some administrative issues,” he said. Former KP chief minister Pervaiz Khattak had also written a letter to the ECP demanding the election on 21 seats at the same time with the KP province. The KP Assembly also passed the KP-Fata merger bill with a two-thirds majority after it was approved by the parliament in the centre.