ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan on Thursday announced it would complete training of around one million election staff a week before the Feb 8 general elections.

The ECP started training of 985,913 election staff in the last week of November 2023, who will be deployed for elections duty.

The commission on Thursday said it had so far completed the necessary training of 579,191 election staff for the general elections on a priority basis.

The training of the remaining 406,222 people will be completed by Feb 1, 2024. The election staff included district returning officers, returning officers, presiding officers, assistant presiding officers and other election staff.

In a statement, the commission said that strict disciplinary action was being taken against the staff absent from the training programme and, therefore, all government employees assigned poll duties have been directed to ensure their attendance at the training sessions.

In addition, on the special instructions of the commission, a Central Con­trol Room (CCR) has been fully functioning since Dec 26, 2023, and it has been redressing complaints received on a daily basis.

The CCR has received 45 complaints so far and all of them have been redressed. At the same time, 165 complaints, received in the CCR set up in the Election Commission Secretariat, were immediately acted upon and the complaints redressed.

The commission said that 80 control rooms had also been activated at provincial, divisional and district levels which were assisting the Central Con­trol Room in monitoring the election-related matters and prompt redressal of complaints.

Similarly, monitoring teams deployed in all districts across the country have also been activated, which are engaged in removing on a daily basis all publicity materials put on display by candidates in violation of the code of conduct.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2024