LAHORE: Publicity campaigns worth more than Rs6.0 billion of local election candidates have gone down the drain as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has cancelled the polling schedule following Supreme Court orders to the effect.

The contestants will be facing an added financial loss in the form of non-refundable candidature fees they had submitted to the ECP.

According to the official figures, at least 204,855 nomination papers had been filed for the elections of union councils of Metropolitan Corporation Lahore, 11 municipal corporations, 35 district councils and wards of 172 municipal committees in Punjab.

Besides running door-to-door contact drives, candidates had been running their outdoor publicity campaigns through flexes and brochures to impress the voters. The permitted size for a flex was 3 by 5 feet.

Farooq Bhatti, a local printer who had prepared publicity material for many hopefuls of the offices of chairman and general councillor, told Dawn that on an average each candidate for chairman seat got prepared 300 to 500 flexes and for councillor’s 50 plus flexes. The per square foot cost of these flexes was Rs25.

Official figures put the number of contenders for the chairman office at 20,046. If each of these candidates had got on an average 400 flexes, the total expenses spiral over Rs3.0 billion.

Similarly, there were 117,506 candidates for general councillor seats. Going by Mr Bhatti’s statement, one gets over Rs2.2 billion as the total cost.

There were also 67,303 candidates for the seats reserved for youth, women, workers and minorities. By adding the cost these contestants had incurred on their electioneering, the total expenses figures easily crosses Rs6.0 billion mark.

Hameed Ijaz, another printer, said many candidates had also got prepared expensive brochures for distribution among the electorate, detailing their services for the community and making new promises.

On the other hand, each of these contenders had also deposited thousands of rupees as the candidature fee to the ECP.

Candidates for district council chairman slots were required to submit Rs20,000 each as the fee, for municipal committee Rs10,000 and for UC Rs5,000, while those in the race for general councillor slots and reserved seats were also to pay Rs2,000 each.

Therefore, 20,046 candidates for UC chairmanship deposited a total of over Rs100 million with the ECP, and 117,506 for general councillor seats and 67,303 running for reserved seats paid more than Rs369 million to the election authority as non-refundable fees.

The ECP has sought to console these souls by promising to accept the fee payment receipts in the next election for which schedule will be given after fresh delimitations, a process that is set to take months.

The payers have been asked to keep the receipts safe with them till the next schedule is announced.