MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Election Commission on Saturday claimed that around 90pc of discrepancies in electoral rolls had been rectified and announced that the election schedule would be issued in mid-May.

The assurance came during a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) retired Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mughal at Jammu and Kashmir House in Islamabad. It was attended by Election Commission member Syed Nazeerul Hassan Gillani, Senior Member Board of Revenue (SMBR) Sardar Mohammad Zafar Khan, commissioners, deputy commissioners and other officials.

Deputy Commissioner Bagh Asim Khalid Awan, who heads a committee formed to rectify errors in voter lists, briefed the meeting on progress made in correcting discrepancies that had triggered widespread public concern and criticism from political circles.

Officials informed the meeting that about 90pc of the correction work had been completed and the remaining issues would be resolved within the next few days.

Addressing participants, Justice Mughal stressed that transparent electoral rolls were essential for ensuring free, fair and impartial elections. He appreciated the administration’s efforts and said the preparation and updating of voter lists should become a year-round exercise in future.

The CEC said public concern over the discrepancies was understandable, but stressed that future safeguards were needed to prevent recurrence of such problems.

He also claimed that some individuals had established “labs” to prepare identity cards and pressure the administration into registering votes. He suggested that new voters should be included to avoid further complications, while the committee concerned could take decisions according to circumstances.

He also underlined the need for fixing responsibility through a proper report on the issue.

The CEC announced that the election schedule for the forthcoming polls would be issued in mid-May.

Election Commission member Gillani thanked the administration for assisting the electoral process and said flaws in the voter lists had largely been addressed through coordinated efforts led by the Deputy Commissioner Bagh.

The SMBR termed the Election Commission’s confidence in the administration “an honour” and expressed hope that the irregularities would not recur in future.

During the briefing, Mr Awan said discrepancies had emerged during data entry and processing of electoral rolls for the 2026 elections, resulting in the omission of around 167,000 voters from the updated data.

He said the 2022 electoral rolls had been used as the baseline, while deceased voters were removed and records of married women updated. However, technical and sequencing issues during data integration with Nadra led to errors across several districts.

He said officials discovered during scrutiny that fresh entries from some areas had failed to appear in the system, while data from certain constituencies had been shifted to other districts because of technical and filtering issues during processing.

According to Mr Awan, reports from Poonch, Palandri, Bagh and Muzaffarabad had been completed, while work in Mirpur, Bhimber, Neelum and Haveli was nearing completion.

The meeting was informed that the electoral rolls contained around 2.85 million voters. Officials said nearly 100,000 voters had died since the previous rolls were prepared, while around 500,000 new voters had been added. However, about 167,000 of the fresh entries failed to appear in the updated data due to technical problems, triggering the controversy over the lists.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2026