SUKKUR: A multi-party conference held in Jacobabad late on Wednesday night accused the ruling party of tampering with delimitation of constituencies to engineer success in local bodies’ elections and demanded that the Election Commission of Pakistan check the move and take action against the officials involved in it.

The multi-party conference organised by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was attended by local leaders of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party, Pakistan Peoples Party-Shaheed Bhutto, Youth Soomro Movement, PML-Quaid, PML-Functional, Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen and others who warned the LB system would collapse if the rulers continued to tinker with delimitation.

They said that MNAs and MPAs were busy changing delimitation according to their choice to take advantage of it in LB election.

They demanded the ECP as well as Election Commission of Sindh take notice of the practice of tampering with constituencies, make delimitations according to people’s choice and take action against the corrupt election officer.

They warned of staging strong protests if the ECP did not move into action against the anti-people moves and failed to address the fears expressed by the MPC.

Polio drive results

It is due to poor performance in routine immunisation that there is a difficulty in eradication of the polio virus.

This was stated by Sukkur Commissioner Muhammad Abbas Baloch while addressing an emergency meeting held in the committee room of his office on Thursday. The Sukkur deputy commissioner, representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and health department officials attended the meeting.

In reports, usually performance was shown 90 per cent by those responsible, however, in field it was even less than 20 per cent and that was a big misfortune, he said. Emergency Operation Centre Coordinator/ Special Secretary Usman Chachar, who earlier visited the district health office and collected detailed information on anti-polio campaigns, told the meeting that polio had been eradicated across the world barring a few countries which included Pakistan.

Even the countries engaged in civil war had got rid of polio, but there was a question mark as to why Pakistan lagged behind, he said.

He asked officers of the health department and doctors to play their effective role acting upon the micro plan in polio eradication efforts.

If any report about unsatisfactory performance was received about any officer or a doctor, strict action would be taken against them, he warned. In connection to polio eradication task, the deputy commissioner would be more responsible being a team leader, he added.

He said the purpose of anti-polio campaigns was lying under a commitment that each and every child (aged below five years) residing in katcha or pakka areas would be administered polio drops during every campaign.

In connection to effective monitoring process of polio campaigns, he said Central Pakistan Unit in Sukkur was being established.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2015

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