The Sindh government has announced that the second phase of local government elections, scheduled for Sunday 15 January, would not be held for Karachi and Hyderabad divisions.
However, polls in seven districts of Sindh – Tando Allahyar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Thatta, Badin, Sujawal, and Jamshoro – will go ahead as scheduled.
Addressing a press conference late on Thursday night, Sindh information minister Sharjeel Memon also announced that the notification to hold polls on the basis of the existing delimitations had also been withdrawn, as per the demand of their coalition partner MQM-P, which had serious reservations with it.
The MQM-P has rejected the delimitation of local government constituencies, terming them “unjustified”, and had demanded the withdrawal of the notification.
At the late night press conference, information minister Memon said that the provincial government had already written to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to postpone local government elections in Dadu, as many areas of the district were still under water.
The decision to postpone local bodies elections in two divisions of Sindh came after an emergency meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), presided by party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and attended by Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, provincial ministers and the district presidents of the party’s Karachi chapter, among other party leaders.
However, polls in seven districts of Sindh – Tando Allahyar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Thatta, Badin, Sujawal, and Jamshoro – will go ahead as scheduled.
Addressing a press conference late on Thursday night, Sindh information minister Sharjeel Memon also announced that the notification to hold polls on the basis of the existing delimitations had also been withdrawn, as per the demand of their coalition partner MQM-P, which had serious reservations with it.
The MQM-P has rejected the delimitation of local government constituencies, terming them “unjustified”, and had demanded the withdrawal of the notification.
At the late night press conference, information minister Memon said that the provincial government had already written to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to postpone local government elections in Dadu, as many areas of the district were still under water.
The decision to postpone local bodies elections in two divisions of Sindh came after an emergency meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), presided by party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and attended by Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, provincial ministers and the district presidents of the party’s Karachi chapter, among other party leaders.