KARACHI - The Sindh Assembly on Wednesday called for an extension to the deadline for making corrections in the erroneous electoral rolls, besides making new enrolments.
The House unanimously approved a joint out-of-turn resolution moved by the coalition partners.
Taking part in debate on the resolution, PPP legislator Humera Alwani pinpointed anomalies in the voter lists, and claimed that a hundred thousand votes of Sindh had been shifted to Balochistan. She said that some 35,000 votes of government officials from Karachi had been shifted to their ancestral towns in interior Sindh.
She said these government officials wanted to cast their votes in Karachi. She demanded that the deadline for correction and enrolment of voters be extended for a period of one month.
Heer Soho of the MQM said that complaints of anomalies in the voter lists were also received from Jacobabad, Shikarpur and other areas, but the PPP member wanted to create an impression that irregularities were committed only in Karachi and that too at the behest of a single party. She said that a male enumerator had filled 15,000 forms and a female filled 10,000 forms. This issue of registration of bogus votes was not restricted to one place.
MQM’s Muzammil Qureshi complained that in his constituency PS-118, seven thousands votes were enrolled in one block. He said according to the ECP rules, up to 2,800 voters could be enrolled in one block. He said that enrolment of such a huge number of votes in one block would disturb the system. He added that he had approached the election commission for rectification of the voter lists. Speaker Nisar Khuhro put the resolution in the House which was approved unanimously.
Meanwhile, the privilege motion of PML-Q minister Sheharyar Mehar could not be taken up due to the absence of its mover although the chief engineer of Sukkur Barrage was available to clarify his position. Law Minister Ayaz Soomro informed the House that the matter stood resolved. Upon this, the speaker, who called the House in order at 11:30am, asked the law minister to ask the chief engineer to come to his chamber to sort out the issue. Khuhro observed that without hearing the viewpoint of the mover of the motion, the issue could be taken as resolved.
Haji Munawar Ali Abbasi drew the attention of the House to his point of order that despite assurances, desilting work on a canal was not carried out. He warned that if the canal was not desilted soon, the next crops would be adversely impacted.
He reminded the speaker that “you yourself had visited the canal, but the department concerned had not paid any attention”.
Pitamber Sehwani drew the attention of the House to the failure of the law minister to furnish the reply on the issue of forced conversions despite his assurances.
“The reply was expected within three days. As the law minister has not given any reply, my resolution be referred to the standing committee.”
The law minister asked the lawmaker to see him after the session at his chamber and he would satisfy him on the issue.
When the member insisted that the resolution be referred to the committee, the speaker advised him to meet the law minister and if he was not satisfied with the report, he could take up his resolution tomorrow. The House was adjourned till Thursday morning.