LAHORE: The Election Commission of Pakistan has asked the Punjab government to constitute a provincial cabinet committee to hold consultation with the commission and finalise a date for the Local Government elections in the province.

The commission has also announced that the ECP and Punjab government consultative meeting would be held at the commission secretariat in Islamabad on Aug 20.

The ECP has written a letter to the Punjab chief secretary, citing different sections of the Election Act and desired that the Punjab cabinet should constitute a cabinet committee for holding consultations with the commission on the announcement of polling date regarding LG elections in the province.

The local government elections have been delayed on one pretext or another for the past many years and only passage of the Punjab Local Government Act, 2025 and the Punjab Local Government (Election) Rules, 2026 had paved the way for the holding of local government elections in the province.

While the local government minister Zeeshan Rafique had earlier told journalists that the LG elections date would be announced within this year, the Punjab cabinet had last week approved an allocation of Rs12.52 billion for holding LG elections.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2026