HYDERABAD, March 27: The revised list of voters in Hyderabad district as provided to the election commissioner concerned by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) on Wednesday shows the number of eligible registered voters as 923,140 as against around 1.1 million verified for the 2008 general elections.

District Election Commissioner Ali Asghar Sial told Dawn that he just received the list finalised by Nadra.

Regarding the number being at a lower side, he said this could be on account of double entries, shifting/migration of voters to other district etc. “There are 946 blocks in the district and most of them have been changed by Nadra,” he said, adding that his staff would go through the voters list that pertained to the entire district. Changes affecting PS-50, PS-53 and NA-222 constituencies falling in the rural talukas of Hyderabad, Tandojam and Tando Mohammad Khan had to be taken into account, according to him.

About the tentative polling stations and booths, he said there were three National Assembly and six Sindh Assembly seats in Hyderabad for which a total of 1,488 tentative polling stations — 730 for NA and 758 for PA constituencies — were being established. Around 4,641 polling booths would also be set up in the district, he added.

Meanwhile, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) coordination committee deputy convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui has described delimitation of three NA and eight PA constituencies of Karachi alone as an attempt to block his part’s way to the elected houses. He said the delimitation was ‘MQM-specific’.

Mr Siddiqui and another committee member Kanwar Naveed Jamil spoke to journalists after submitting their nomination forms on Wednesday.

Mr Siddiqui criticised delimitation in Karachi alone and said: “Let them do it.

It is purely something unconstitutional and we have adopted constitutional recourse to challenge them”.

He said MQM was not in haste to become part an electoral alliance.

He appreciated the changes made to the form by the ECP on the ground that it was a better way to improve political system.