PESHAWAR, July 6: The NWFP assembly has demanded fresh enrolment of voters. Makhdoom Mureed Kazim of the Pakistan People’ Party (Sherpao) presented a resolution in the house, demanding holding of the forthcoming local bodies elections on the basis of the electoral list of 2002, and a fresh enlistment of voters. The resolution was adopted unanimously.
Speaking on the confusing issue, Abdul Akbar Khan of the People’s Party Parliamentarians had expressed his concern over the enrolment of voters in what he said a discarded electoral list of 2001.
He demanded that the federal government should ask the Election Commission of Pakistan to update its electoral list of 2002, by enrolling new voters.
Anwar Kamal Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) said it was a rare case in the history of the country wherein new voters were enlisted into a discarded and rejected electoral list. All those new voters who had reached 18 years of age should be enrolled as voters, he added.
Earlier, the house admitted an adjournment motion presented by Abdul Akbar Khan regarding the creation of a service structure for paramedics across the province. He regretted that despite the sensitive nature of their job, successive governments had failed in evolving a service structure for them in public and private sector hospitals.
He said the paramedics had no future in the NWFP because they had nothing with them in writing on promotion and length of their service.
Health Minister Inyatullah Khan requested the mover to give him one-month time to get the issue settled once and for all. He said the matter was pending with the health ministry owing to data related problems.
He said the cabinet had discussed it in length to solve it, but owing to some objections raised by the finance and health departments, it was pending for time being. He said the chief minister had formed a committee to look into the matter.
After the final recommendations of the committee, the issue would be solved amicably, he assured the mover.
Speaker Bakht Jehan Khan, presiding over the session, admitted the motion for discussion. He said a detailed discussion on the issue would help the minister in finding out an early solution of it.
Khalil Abbas Khan and Qalb-i-Hasan of the Awami National Party and Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani of the PML-Q expressed their concern over what they called as gerrymandering into the old delimitations of Nowshera, Kohat and Abbottabad. They demanded of the government to restore the earlier status of their constituencies.
Minister for Local Bodies and Rural Development Sardar Idrees assured the MPAs that the government would not make unnecessary changes into the constituencies before the elections.