June 21, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 05, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 20: Election Commission Secretary Kanwar Dilshad has denied the reports of omission of 20 million voters from the computerised electoral rolls.

In a statement on Wednesday, he said if voters’ name were not inserted in the list, it was due to non-availability of their national identity cards.

He said according to the Nadra report, 28 million enlisted people were without national identity cards. Therefore, he said, about 20 million people who were without NICs had not been registered in the voters’ list.

The Election Commission secretary said it was not appropriate to say that 20 million voters’ names had been deleted from the electoral list.

Actually names of those people who had not yet got their national identity were missing from the list. The Election Commission secretary said the electoral list was prepared under the Local Government Election Order in September 2000.

The list was prepared by Nadra on the basis of 1998 census data under which local government elections were held in 2000-2001, he added.—APP