LAHORE: The Punjab election commission has reportedly asked the provincial government not to transfer officers in districts who are acting as assistant returning officers.

Sources in the Punjab government on Sunday said the direction had hampered the provincial government’s expected move to change assistant commissioners and other field officers -- posted by the previous provincial government -- to pre-empt any attempt at influencing voters in favour of the PML-N during the elections.

The commission sent a letter to the local government secretary, who is the focal person for the elections. It states that all officials performing duty as assistant returning officers in the province may not be transferred till the culmination of the general elections. Necessary instructions may be given to the departments concerned for “strict” compliance to avoid any complications, it adds.

Officials said the assistant returning officers included 100 assistant commissioners. The rest were tehsildars, chief officers of the local government department, and officials of other departments such as education and labor, who were posted across the province.

The reported number of assistant returning officers is 733 -- two for one each National and Punjab assembly constituency.

Many civil servants welcomed the election commission’s move, saying it was necessary not to change officials serving as assistant returning officers because doing so would affect preparations for the elections. It would become difficult for the replacing officers to know the constituencies in the little time left for the election, the officials said.

They also mentioned an objection by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa election commission to the transfer of civil servants acting as returning and assistant returning officers, who were transferred last week during a massive reshuffle of the administrative machinery by the caretaker government. The objection had been made on the same grounds that the transfers would badly affect the process.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2018