LAHORE: The Faisalabad mayor has asked the Lahore High Court to set aside several provisions of the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2021 that envisages dissolution of existing local bodies till Jan 1, 2022, and the use of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the next polls in the province.

“The ruling party in Punjab with a mala fide intention is trying to bring a system of local government according to its own whims and wishes, which can be controlled and influenced by it alone,” Mayor Razzaq Malik pleads in his petition filed through Advocate Awais Khalid.

He submits that the current government changed the faces of the elected representatives at first through the Act of 2019 indirectly which cannot be done directly and now the whole election scheme is being disrupted through the impugned ordinance.

He argues that the under the impugned law the chief minister has been given powers to take decisions or actions according to his own whims making the local government system redundant.

The mayor states that a new scheme of voting method through the EVMs has been imposed in the new law without an approval from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that has already showed reservations on the use of machines.

He argues that the right of vote has been abbreviated as polling through technology without a proper training of the voters and even illiterate voters just to dictate the whole election process is against the spirit of free and fair elections.

The petitioner contends that the impugned actions of the government are ultra vires to the Constitution as the will of the people and their right to vote has been snatched by introducing provisions for the appointment of non-elected persons in the offices of local government.

He asks the court to set aside the impugned provisions of the ordinance for being in violation of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2021