BADIN, July 19: The assistant election commissioner, Mr Abdul Jamia Indhar, has said the name of former District Nazim Kamal Chang has not been included in the electoral list anywhere in the Badin district after delimitation. He told Dawn that deletion and entry of voters had been frozen and he had no authority to add, delete or make changes in the electoral rolls.

All the efforts of the former district nazim for getting his name enrolled reportedly went in vain.

After the formation of new district, Mr Chang will have to caste his vote in Tando Mohammad Khan district.

Mr Indhar said there was a complete ban on the sale of electoral lists.

He said one could get photocopies on his own expenses.

He said the candidates must have CNIC while voters were allowed to use old or new NIC during the election.

He said all was set for the local body elections as all material and general items were available.

He said there would be 528 polling stations and 1,960 booths for which 528 presiding officers, 5,880 assistant presiding officers and 1,960 polling officers were required to conduct the polls.

A total number of 529,148 including 230,539 women voters are registered in the district.

STRIKE: A complete strike was observed in Shaheed Fazil Raho town on Tuesday to protest against water shortage in Jalalani and Golarchi sub-divisions.

All shops remained closed and the entire business came to a standstill.

Hundreds of farmers in scores of vehicles arrived in the town and joined the protesters.

The strike call was given by the Water Action Committee and supported by political parties, traders and people belonging to different walks of life.

Former Taluka Nazim Aslam Raho, Jamaat-i-Islami Badin Ameer Dawood Shah, Nawaz Memon, Ghafoor Memon, Irfan Gujjar and Umer Shahani led the protesters.

They marched on the main thoroughfares of the town and staged a sit-in.

As a result, vehicular traffic leading to main cities was suspended for over five hours.

Farmer leaders said shortage of water in all waterways was an artificial as 200,000 cusecs water was flowing below the Kotri Barrage but farmers in lower Sindh were being deprived of their due share of water.

They demanded that Sida officials be transferred.

An official of the irrigation department said a large number of watercourses were tempered with, resulting shortage of water at the tail.

He said complaint letters against scores of landlords were sent to police but no FIR was registered against them.