Law minister justifies ECP decision of deferring Punjab polls

ISLAMABAD     -   Federal Minister for Law and Justice, Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar on Thurs­day said that general elections across the country should be held together for political and economic stability. 

The Election Commission of Paki­stan (ECP) had postponed the elec­tions in Punjab and Khyber Pa­khtunkhwa keeping in view the security, political and economic chal­lenges, he said, adding that unfortu­nately an onslaught had been started on social media against this decision without even reading the facts.

Addressing a press con­ference, the minister said that it was the mandate of ECP to conduct free and fair elections in the country un­der article-218 of the con­stitution. The ECP didn’t consider the current sit­uation as suitable for the polls, he said. He said that a surge in terrorism inci­dents had been witnessed in the country during last few months and the ECP had taken this decision af­ter the state institutions ap­prised it about the security issues. The security institu­tions were currently busy in borders, internal securi­ty and census, he said, add­ing in this situation it was not possible to get heavy deployment for the polls as well. The minister further said that the Article 224 of the constitution asked for the general elections at the same time across the coun­try, adding that article-254 also gave provision to post­pone the polls due to the extraordinary situation.

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