LAHORE: “You see! I’ve been given party ticket for the first time after rendering services for it for years. But, a grave anomaly in the voters’ list is forcing me out of the electoral process (for local bodies),” bemoans Muhammad Sharif, who claims to hold PML-N ticket for a general councillor seat in UC No 4, Shahdara, one of the most neglected neighbourhoods of the provincial metropolis.

Polling for local elections is set to be held on Jan 30 under the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) schedule given on Dec 9. But the deadline is most likely to be pushed forward as the Lahore High Court has declared null and void the delimitations and the ECP sought guidance from the Supreme Court to move forward on the issue.

Locating his name in the cause list of additional sessions court of Sajjad Sindhar, the appellate authority for 274 UCs of Lahore, Sharif complains the returning officer rejected his nomination on the excuse that both his proposer and seconder –sons of Sharif – were not registered as voters in the UC.

“How come votes of my unmarried sons living in my house be transferred to the adjacent locality (union council),” he asks desperately.

At least 147 appellate authorities across Punjab are working to dispose of appeals against rejection of nomination papers from Jan 8 to Jan 11. A total of 420 such appeals have been filed with the court of Mr Sindhar.

Some members of legal fraternity believe that continuing work on the previous election schedule is contempt of court in view of the LHC verdict, besides being ‘an exercise in futility’.

“As the high court has struck down the delimitations, the very basis of the election process, the exercise itself stands null and void and completing the same under the previous schedule is tantamount to contempt of court,” argues Advocate Mudassar Butt, who came to represent a candidate before the appellate authority on Wednesday.

“I’m going to put the same point before the court.”

This view is challenged by another lawyer, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, also a PTI candidate for vice chairman slot for UC-151, Fatehgarh.

“The court did not stay the election process. It just struck down the part of the local government law pertaining to delimitations with the directions that the polls be held as per schedule,” he says.

He, however, admits that the whole exercise will turn futile if the apex court allowed carrying forward the polling date.

The election staff continued scrutiny of nominations, receiving and disposing of objections against the candidatures despite the LHC short order on Dec 31. Faiz Naeem Warraich, district officer (welfare) working as the returning officer for UC 185-192, says they can stop the process only if the ECP notifies to the effect.

He says he rejected the papers because the aspiring candidates either mentioned wrong delimitation or seat.

According to him, some candidates have applied against ‘peasant seat’ while Lahore has been declared a metropolis where the quota has been reserved for labourers instead of peasants, under the rules.

It points out another anomaly in the election rules for there are many rural constituencies in Lahore where farming is being still done on commercial basis. The peasant community of these UCs will go unrepresented if the relevant rules are not changed.

And the government is least interested in removing anomalies in the local government law for it is overly busy with the Youth Festival 2014.

“Presently, we’re concentrating on the Youth Festival and have no time for looking into the modalities either of the local government law or anything else,” a senior officer in the local government department told Dawn.

Another officer involved in the local polls claimed that there are informal instructions to give priority to the festival ‘forgetting the local elections’.