LAHORE, July 31: A proposal to hold elections to the Senate the day following joint polling for national and provincial assemblies has been floated before the Election Commission Pakistan (ECP), sources said on Wednesday.

As disclosed by the sources, such a proposal had been made following an expected shortage of polling staff.

According to insiders, the provincial commission is faced with the staff shortage following recent instructions from the ECP for appointing three polling officers for each booth.

It was learnt that the proposal for elections to national and provincial seats on the same day and Senate seats on the second day had been discussed in the meeting of July 27 and 28 chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Irshad Hassan Khan in Islamabad.

However, the sources said that no decision had been made on the proposal since the polling schemes had yet to be finalized and requisitions for the polling personnel forwarded.

“Nothing can be said of this proposal which might be discarded in case a solution to the shortage problem of polling staff is found,” said the sources.

As disclosed by the sources, the ECP had enhanced the number of polling officers from two to three per booth leaving the provincial commission well short of the desired number of personnel.

A rough estimate of 30,000 polling stations had been made by the Punjab Election Commission in the polling scheme draft for which a workforce of at least 400,000 polling personnel was required.

The sources said the commission had employed 250,000 personnel during the last year’s LB polls which might not be sufficient keeping in view the enhanced number of polling stations.

“Though no accurate estimates have been made regarding the number of presiding officers, assistant presiding officers and polling officers, we are trying our best to end the expected deficiency,” the sources said.

The sources, however, said no requisition for the actual number of polling staff required by the provincial commission had been sent to the ECP since calculations were underway.

According to the latest instructions forwarded by the ECP, one presiding officer, three assistant presiding officers and three polling officers would be appointed in the polling station having a maximum of three booths. In order to be appointed against any of the above mentioned three offices, one had to be a government employee of BPS-18 and above.

The shortage of the polling staff had also been sensed during the recent compilation of the polling scheme draft where the authorities were faced with the problems of adjustment of polling stations for national and provincial constituencies falling within the same electoral area.

The sources disclosed that details in this regard had also been worked out and would be finalized by Aug 5.