Election officer accused of bias

Published September 12, 2007

THATTA, Sept 11: People’s Party Parliamentarians MPA Sassui Palijo has accused the Thatta assistant election officer of bias and indifference to the opposition party’s voters and appealed to the Chief Election Commissioner to replace him with an impartial and honest official.

Talking to Dawn, Ms Palijo said that the apex court’s directives about voters-lists were a ray of hope for the opposition political parties and they believed that the commission would now act to remove irregularities from the new voters-lists but nothing of the sort happened.

In sheer violation of the court’s directives, not a single name of any alien, non-local and illegal immigrant like the Bengalis, Biharis, Afghans etc had thus far been deleted from the lists in Thatta, she said.

The lists still carried duplication of voters’ names and the assistant election officer had still not put the lists on display at display centres, she said alleging that the lists were in the possession of landlords-cum-politicians affiliated with ruling party, who did not allow common voters to see the lists and check their particulars.

Ms Palijo said that the assistant election officer plainly denied providing her objection and name inclusion forms on one pretext or the other during many of her visits to his office in Makli.