KARACHI: While the main opposition parties in Sindh are teaming up with each other against amendments made by the Pakistan Peoples Party government to the local government law, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is set to start the delimitation process from Friday (tomorrow) for LG elections in Sindh.

The process is likely to complete in March next year as the ECP said that the final list of union councils and union committees/wards would be published by delimitation committees on March 24.

According to the schedule issued by the ECP to carry out delimitation, the completion of all administrative arrangements including procurement of maps and relevant data would be made within 15 days (from Dec 31 to Jan 14, 2022), the preliminary list of union council and union committees/ward would be prepared by delimitation committees from Jan 17 to Feb 15 and the same would be published on Feb 16 inviting representations and objections.

ECP likely to complete task in three months

The objections and representations could be filed by voters concerned between Feb 17 and March 4 before such committees and the same would be disposed of till March 21.

March 22 would be the last date to communicate the decisions of delimitation authorities to delimitation committees while the final list would be published on March 24, it added.

The tenure of the last local governments in Sindh had ended in Aug 30, 2020 and the ECP was under constitutional and legal obligation to hold the LG polls within 120 days of the expiry of the tenure.

However, it could not be complied with as initially letters issued by the provincial election commission in April last year to district election commissioners of Sindh for delimitation of UCs/ wards were challenged in court on the grounds that under the Elections Act, 2017, the exercise of delimitation could not be carried out unless the final results of the population census were officially published.

After several directives of the court, the Council of Common Interests had approved Census-2017 in April and the official result of census was published in May.

Thereafter, the Sindh government has been continuing to drag its feet on the issue as the ECP had notified delimitation committees for LG polls in Sindh, but the provincial government did not provide requisite data nor made amendment to the Sindh LG Act 2013 on the pretext that it had reservations on the official result of the 2017 census.

In November, the ECP had issued a final deadline to the Sindh government to provide data for holding elections in the province.

The ECP had directed the chief secretary to give necessary legislation and the requisite data, maps and notifications within two weeks and warned that alternatively, the commission would initiate the delimitation process in the province with effect from Dec 1 under the applicable LG law (LG Act 2013) in Sindh and would frame rules thereunder.

Thus, the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2021, was first passed in November in the provincial assembly and again this month after the same was sent back by the governor after raising several objections.

However, all the major opposition parties of Sindh have been protesting against the amendments and some of them have also petitioned the Sindh High Court. According to them, the bill has usurped the authority of local governments.

They have strongly opposed the amendment made to Section 140-A (Power of government to amend schedules) which says, “Notwithstanding anything contained in this act, the government shall have power to amend, alter, add or remove any entries from the schedules, by notification and the official gazette”.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2021