SAHIWAL: Likely candidates for the 2018 elections say they have found discrepancies in the delimitation of constituencies in the newly-formed NA 148 and NA 149 in the district.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has displayed lists of villages and maps of the proposed constituencies on its website since March 5, inviting the public to submit their objections to the delimitation in a month.

The ECP provided links regarding delimitation which show the maps of constituencies with qanoongo circles, patwar circles and villages with population for each constituency. For the three constituencies of Sahiwal - NA 147 to 149 - the population for each constituency is 780,266.

PPP leader Zaki Chaudhry, who is a PPP aspirant for the NA-149, said there were many villages that were located in the newly-marked delimitation maps but their patwar circles and villages were not included in final drafted list. He mentioned patwar circle 78/5-R and its villages 72/4-R and 78/5-R, patwar circle 92/6-R and its village 94/6-R and 92/6-R, patwar circle 79/5-R and 80/5-R and its villages 79/5-R, 80/5-R and 81/5-R, and patwar circle 134/9-L and its villages 135/9-L, 135A/9-L, 134/6-L and 136/9-L were included in the marked constituency maps but these circles and villages were missing from the draft list of the constituency.

Similarly, former PPP minister Ghulam Farid Kathia, who will contest for NA 148, told Dawn the following villages were mentioned in the list of the constituency but missing from the marked map at the ECP website: 78/5-R, 79/5-R, 80/5-R, 81/5-R, 134/9-L, 89.5-R, 135/9-L, 134/9-L, and 72/4-R.

A Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader from Chichawatni said a village was not in the map of NA 147 but mentioned in qanoongo halqa of NA 147.

“It must be a clerical mistake,” former MPA Hafeez Akhtar, now candidate for PP-199, said.

He told Dawn delimitation had disturbed the “compactness” of their previous constituency. He said the restructuring of the constituencies had brought his provincial assembly constituency to the boundaries of PP 196, PP 197, PP 198 and PP 200 simultaneously.

Another PTI candidate for NA 149 Nouraiz Shakoor says there are discrepancies in NA 148 and NA 149 constituencies’ maps and delimitation lists.

PML-N MNA Chaudhry Ashraf, and also likely candidate for NA 148, said he would raise objections with the ECP on discrepancies.

How can one make objections to the new delimitation of constituencies?

Candidates say they are baffled at the mechanism for filing objections. They said that while filing objections with the ECP on drafted list with available delimitation maps, they had to proposed amendments and suggestions to them.

A senior ECP official said that there were discrepancies both in maps and drafted list. He said they had put up data for public display, and suggested the candidates to follow both maps and delimitation lists while filing objections to delimitation 2018.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2018