LAHORE, Feb 25: PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto has rejected calls for delaying party elections in Punjab, the second phase of which is beginning on Monday (today) with candidates for various offices filing their nomination papers to the respective authorities. The polls will be held on March 30.

Six office-bearers – a president, a senior vice-president, a vice-president, a secretary-general, a joint secretary and a public relations secretary — will be elected for every constituency of the Punjab Assembly and union council. These officials will be chosen by 10,275 councillors, each already elected by 25 members.

A number of leaders question the validity of the membership drive and the voters list issued by Chief Election Commissioner Sajjad Bukhari on Feb 20.

The matter also came under discussion at a meeting secretary-general Jehangir Badr, provincial secretary-general Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas and Altaf Qureshi held at a breakfast with workers at Shahdara on Sunday.

Some reportedly said the membership copies had been ‘purchased’ and the enrolment drive was not a genuine exercise.

A senior leader from Gujrat sent an email to Ms Bhutto, raising fingers at the entire process.

Ms Bhutto, through a message, rejected the objections and sent a copy of the same to Mr Bukhari.

“The membership (drive) is not closed and can be continued. However, those registering as members now will not be included in the present electoral list,” she said.

She said: “I agree with you (the complainant) that many members did not realise the significance of the membership well in time. However, it is inappropriate to punish those that did and enrolled. We are going ahead with the schedule, and where there are gaps in the union councils, we will fill in later with your support.”

Sajjad Bukhari said on Sunday that enrolment date would not be extended nor the electoral process delayed. He said the election schedule for every province had been finalised after consultations, and delaying the process in one province would mean changing the entire plan.

According to him, as many as 328 nomination forms had been obtained by those desirous of contesting for various offices of the 25 organisations, one each for every provincial assembly constituency of Lahore. In other words, there will be 13 candidates for the six offices in every constituency. Simply put, there will be a straight fight for every office.

Mr Bukhari said the new office-bearers would be elected for three years.

The schedule of elections for the district organisations and big cities would be announced subsequently. However, they are expected to be completed by October.

Elections for provincial organisations will be completed much later. And then the central office-bearers will be chosen.

The PPP CEC said the party elections had nothing to do with the schedule of the national elections, and the exercise could be continued even during the general polls.—Ashraf Mumtaz