The Sindh High Court (SHC) has ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to conduct immediate local elections in Karachi and Hyderabad.
The Supreme Court ruled on the petitions of Jamaat-e-Islami(JI)Â and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) against the postponement of LG polls in Karachi and Hyderabad.
The Sindh High Court allowed the petitions against the delay in LG elections and ordered the holding of local body elections in Karachi and Hyderabad.
In its verdict, the court ordered that the election commission should announce the schedule of LG elections and that the Sindh government should provide security personnel to the ECP.
It should be noted that the election commission also reserved its decision on the Sindh government’s request to postpone the municipal elections of Karachi for another three months.
It should be remembered that the LG elections in Karachi were scheduled to be held on July 24, but the Election Commission had announced the postponement of the elections on July 21 at the request of the provincial government in view of possible rains.
Later, the Election Commission issued a schedule for local government elections on August 28, but the Sindh government postponed the elections citing the floods in the province and claimed that police personnel were deployed in flood-affected areas.
The commission issued the schedule for the holding of local elections on October 23 for the third time, but this effort of the Election Commission could not prove fruitful due to the non-cooperation of the Sindh government.
The Sindh government sought postponement once again by saying that the Sindh Police contingents were deployed in the flood-affected areas and Islamabad. Elections in Karachi and Hyderabad were postponed for the third time.