PESHAWAR, Oct 7: Lawmakers and representatives of different political have objected to the procedure adopted by the Election Commission (EC) for cancelling the old voters' lists and demanded that computerised national identity cards issued to Afghan nationals living in the country for decades should be cancelled first.

They were speaking at a consultative meeting convened by the EC here at District Council Hall on Friday. Justice (retired) Shehzad Akbar, member Election Commission, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, chaired the meeting to get feedback on the process of electoral rolls' preparation. At one time, teachers performing duties as assistant registration officers (AROs) walked out of the hall when they failed to get time to register the problems they had been facing in the field.

The district coordination officer, Peshawar, and a couple of MPAs brought the AROs back with the assurance that their views would be heard. The AROs said that political parties were not cooperating with them in the entry process and they had to tolerate abusive language of people in the field.

“The registration job is very hectic and the daily remuneration given to each ARO is only Rs41,” said an ARO Shabir Ahmed. He said that identification cards had not been issued to them and people did not accept them as the relevant officials.

Mr Ahmed said that there was lack of coordination among the relevant departments and in the prevailing situation 50 per cent people would remain unregistered if their suggestions were not paid attention.

The EC officials, MPAs and representatives of revenue, census and education departments and National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) also attended the meeting.

Briefing the participants about the preparation of electoral lists, Shehzad Akbar and other EC officials said that owing to the dislocation of people from the flood- and militancy-hit areas the date for entry into the lists had been extended to Oct 30. They said that CNIC would be compulsory for polling vote in the next election.

Mr Akbar said that the areas of voters had been divided into different blocks and efforts were made to cleanse the lists from multiple fake entries. He said that this time the EC had shared the data with the Nadra to ensure 'one person, one vote' in the country.

Besides, he said that participation of women voters would be mandatory and in case the ratio of women votes remained below 10 per cent the election would be declared as void. He said that a proposal in this regard had been sent to the law department.

About fake votes, Mr Akbar said that about 37 million fake votes had been cancelled and 36 million new voters were registered in the ongoing process in the country. The politicians, he said, should cooperate with the EC, create awareness among the communities to get the CNICs and enter their names in the lists. He said that display centres would be set up at the union council level for 21 days where everyone could check their names in the lists.

Provincial Sports Minister Aqil Shah suggested that old lists must be used while updating the lists and stressed the need for wide publicity so that people could enlist themselves. He said that division of the voters into different blocks and not mentioning names of their villages and streets would create confusion among the voters.

Awami National Party MPA Saqiullah Chamkani asked for removing from the lists the names of all Afghan nationals holding the CNICs, which they had got through illegal means.

He feared that many people would be unable to cast votes due to Nadra's mistakes and suggested that instead of fixing a last date for entry into voters' lists the process should continue round the year.

MPA Mohammad Alamgir Khalil referred to the mistakes in the previous lists and said that he had proofs about entry of hundreds of people into wrong lists of other constituencies.

Deputy Speaker Khushdil Khan and MPA Aurangzeb Khan also called for removal of Afghan refugees from the lists and preparation of lists on the basis of villages instead of different blocks.

Qasim Jan of PPP, Intikhab Chamkani of PML-Q, Mohammad Arshad of PTI, Hamidullah of JI, Alamzeb Khan of PML-N pointed out that the voters' lists had columns of circle, patwar and block, but the CNICs did not have any such categories which would cause problems for the voters. He suggested that the CNICs should also be updated. MNA Arbab Zahir also attended the meeting.