LAHORE, Oct 23: The Punjab Election Commission has not been returned all the ballot boxes issued for Oct 10 elections in the city.

The matter was reported to the Lahore’s returning officer, who shifted the responsibility to police in a bid to cover up a decision of his that caused the problem in the first place.

Sources said the returning officer had relaxed the condition that ballot boxes should be returned along with the results on polling day. He allowed the presiding officer to deposit the ballot boxes the next day because of a lack of space on the court premises. The permission relaxed many presiding officers who relinquished their duty without retrieving all the boxes.

The RO has now directed the SHOs to check all the polling stations in the area under their jurisdiction to ensure that no boxes remain there.

The officials working under the returning officer confirmed the report, but they neither gave the exact number of the missing ballot boxes nor did they explain the reason for the discrepancy. They said the Punjab Election Commission had neither provided the exact figures in this regard nor had it mentioned the names of polling stations that failed to return the boxes.

The election commission had issued two ballot boxes for each of the 7,927 booths set up in polling stations in Lahore’s 13 NA constituencies.

The RO’s liaison officer said the Election Commission had been requested to recount the number of ballot boxes received by it so as to confirm the exact number of the missing boxes. He said there was no possibility of boxes being stolen from sessions court premises where they had been dumped in the open for 10 days.

He acknowledged that it was the responsibility of every returning officer to retrieve all boxes through his presiding officers.

Sources said no disciplinary action had so far been taken against any presiding officer failing to deposit the boxes.

A returning officer disclosed that returning officers had demanded retrieval through the town municipal officers (TMOs) concerned, but the demand was rejected. He claimed that the TMOs had delivered the boxes to polling stations. Had they been asked to retrieve them as well, there would have been no problem, he claimed.

The Lahore deputy election commissioner said retrieval was under way and would be completed by the end of this week. He said returning officers and presiding officers were responsible for ensuring retrieval of the boxes. He claimed that all the boxes would soon be retrieved. There was none amiss, he further claimed.