GUJRAT: The district election monitoring cell has issued show-cause notices to at least a dozen candidates of various parties and some local government representatives over alleged violation of the election commission’s code of conduct.

Most of the notices were issued to candidates and union council (UC) chairmen and vice chairmen from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and PML-Q however some PPP, PML-N and Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) men were also among those who had reportedly committed violations.

Notices were issued to former provincial minister Tanveer Ashraf Kaira, who is also a PPP contender for PP-33; PML-Q candidates for NA-68 and PP-28 Chaudhry Hussain Elahi and Shujaat Nawaz Ajnala, respectively; PTI candidates for NA-70 and NA-72 Syed Faizul Hassan Shah of Kulewal and Chaudhry Muhammad Ilyas, respectively; PTI candidate for PP-33 Liaquat Bhadar; former PML-N MPA and party candidate for PP-33 Chaudhry Shabbir Kotla, TLP candidates for NA-68 and PP-28 Sahibzada Mehmood Awani and Hafiz Farrukh Nadeem, respectively; PML-Q’s Sada Chak Union Council Chairman Shahzad Warraich, PTI Puran UC Chairman Raja Nadeem Nawaz and another vice chairman of a UC.

The notices were issued by the deputy commissioner/district monitoring officer (DMO), Tauseef Dilshad Kathana, and the violators were asked to appear in person or send their representatives for hearing before the officer.

Most of the violations were related to the display of election material and the local government representatives were said to be running campaigns of candidates from their parties, which was prohibited by the election commission.

The complaints of violation of the code were dispatched by field officers of the district administration, who have been deployed as monitoring officers.

The district administration has established a cell in the Aamir Hall of the DC complex where officials would monitor the election process till polling day.

The DMO is authorised to impose a fine of up to Rs50,000 as well as issuing warnings in case of first violations and on repeated violation, the authority concerned will send the case to election commission.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2018