February 18, 2008	Monday	Safar 10, 1429

RAWALPINDI, Feb 17: An ambiguity has been found in the number of voters in the three constituencies of Rawalpindi city and cantonment, which raises questions on the fairness of elections being held in the country on Monday.

The number of registered voters in two different lists of the Election Commission of Pakistan for the three constituencies does not match with each other.

An investigation carried out by Dawn found that there is a difference of 3,523 voters in the lists updated by the Election Commission on January 9, 2008 and the number of voters as mentioned in the lists of constituency-wise polling stations for NA-54, NA-55 and NA-56.

In NA-54, the number of registered voters as shown in the updated list is 271,396, whereas the number of voters shown in the constituency-wise polling station lists is 272,804. Thus in the updated list, 1,508 registered voters were removed.

In NA-55, the updated figure of registered voters released by ECP is 333,928 against the figure of 333,019 as mentioned in the constituency-wise polling station lists.

In contrast, the number of voters in the updated list increased by 919 voters. In NA-56, the number of registered voters comes to 312,220, whereas the number as mentioned in the list of constituency-wise polling stations stands at 313,316 voters.