HYDERABAD, Jan 27 A country-wide referendum was held in the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) on Wednesday to elect Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA). Similarly, the PTCL Hyderabad office was also busy in electing their CBA.

The process remained peaceful with workers showing enthusiasm for their respective unions. Three main unions were contesting each other.

The last referendum was won by Ziauddin led Pakistan Telecom Employees Union (PTEU) which was up against the Pakistan Telecommunication Lion's Staff Union (PTLSU) headed by Malik Maqbool and Pak Telecom Lions Unity (PTLU) of Lala Hanif.

In Sindh PTEU enjoyed the support of Muttahida Qaumi Movement, also.

Counting was finalised in almost all the polling stations and different claims were being made as to the total number of votes bagged by each union. One third of total registered vote were needed to qualify for the CBA.

According to Mallik Maqbool, there are 27,000 registered voters in the PTCL whereas the PTEU put the figure at 25,000.

PTEU was contesting with symbol of falcon while PTLSU was contesting with symbol of flag and PTLU with flower.

Shakeel Ahmed Khan of PTEU claimed that his union won in lower Sindh region comprising districts of Hyderabad, Tando Mohammad Khan, Sanghar, Badin, Thatta, Mirpurkhas, Tando Allahyar and Gulshan-e-Hadeed Karachi. “We got 1112 votes in our region and are set to become CBA”, he claimed.

PTEU's Ziauddin was busy having total count of votes and was in touch with the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) of Pakistan which certifies a CBA. However, Malik Maqbool has predicted a run-off election because none of the union was able to get required one third of total votes.

“Falcon has secured 7,535 votes, our union got 6,200 and flower 5,700 out of total votes”, said Maqbool. So, he added, no union is able to get the required votes and that's why a run-off election would be held. “We need to get 9,000 votes to become CBA”, he said.—Staff Correspondent