LARKANA, Jan 7: The preparation of electoral lists for the coming elections has been delayed as the primary teachers who were assigned the job of preparing the lists have gone on strike.

All the necessary material meant to undertake the job has been handed over to the staff concerned, the election commission sources told this correspondent on Monday.

The process was scheduled to start from Jan 1, 2002 but due to the enumerators going on strike, the proposed task of preparing electoral lists has been delayed by a week.

The office of the deputy election commissioner, Larkana, looks after Larkana, Shikarpur, and Jacobabad districts and so far none of the teachers had turned up to start the work, the sources said.

The staff appointed including the assistant registration officers have to verify and update the lists prepared in 1998.

The work according to schedule was supposed to start on Jan 1 and would have been completed by Aug 4, 2002, the election commission sources said.

Liaquat Ali Daidar, convener of the Sindh Employees Alliance (SEA), on being contacted told this correspondent on Monday that the strike would continue till the acceptance of their demands. He said that on Jan 10, 2002 the SEA would meet the secretary, Education, in Karachi and open dialogue. These talks would focus on accepting their already submitted demands. If the talks fail, the strike would continue and so the entire process of preparing electoral lists throughout Sindh province would be affected.

The preparation of electoral lists has already been delayed in Larkana, Shikarpur and Jacobabad.

It might be further delayed if the talks remained inconclusive.