News
Saturday, November 17, 2012
4.8m voters could not be physically verified: ECP* ECP secretary says commission detected 30 million fake votes in final electoral rolls
By Tahir Niaz
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday stunned a special parliamentary panel by saying that around 4.8 million individuals enrolled in the voters’ list from across the country could not be traced during door-to-door verification campaign.
The members of the Special Committee on Election Issues, which met at the ECP headquarters, expressed doubts over the credibility of the electoral rolls prepared by NADRA and called for either striking all such ‘dubious entries’ off the electoral rolls or initiating an exercise on emergent basis to physically verify them. The province-wise break up of such entries shows 3.2 million were in Punjab, followed by 0.662 million in Sindh, 0.583 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 0.167 million in FATA and 0.163 million in Balochistan.
The members of parliament attending the meeting expressed doubts that the 4.8 million voters who could not be traced during the door-to-door verification might be aliens who would come on the election day to vote and then leave after tilting the polls in various constituencies in favour of candidates who are otherwise in not in a position to win. On average there were over 21,000 such unverified entries in each of the 148 constituencies in Punjab, which are more than enough to change the entire electoral scenario.
ECP Secretary Ishtiak Ahmad Khan, however, said that there were 37 million unverified entries in the electoral rolls used for 2008 general elections, but nobody had an objection. He said the addresses of 4.8 million voters could not be physically verified but they possessed genuine Computerised National Identity Cards and could not be disenfranchised under the law. He said they were embedded in family structure and the details of the entire family tree were available to establish their identity. He, however, did not rule out another attempt to physically verify these to allay the apprehensions of the parliamentarians.
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Muhammad Ishaq Dar proposed that NADRA be brought out of the Interior Ministry’s control and placed under the administrative control of the election commission to ensure transparency of electoral rolls. Another controversy developed over the registration of voters who could not be contacted at their permanent addresses. Ishaq Dar was of the view that they should have been enrolled at their current addresses.
A NADRA official told the parliamentarians that out of the 4.8 million entries under discussion, the permanent and present address of 4.2 million people were the same and only 0.572 million people were enrolled at their permanent address after attempts to physically contact them did not bear fruit. PML-N MNA Anusha Rehman raised question over preparation of electoral rolls on the basis of new census blocks that were not ratified by the Council of Common Interests.
During a briefing to the Senate Special Committee, ECP Secretary Ishtiak Ahmad Khan said the commission will provide level playing ground to all the political parties and contesting candidates to ensure fair, transparent and credible elections as elections are not only vital for democracy but also for the stability of the country. The committee met under the chairmanship of leader of House Jehangir Badr. Khan said the ECP has detected 30 million fake votes in the voter lists and stressed the need for better coordination between the ECP and NADRA to further improve the efficiency of the commission.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk