ISLAMABAD – Deciding to engage army personnel in voters’ verification in Karachi and delimitation of all constituencies of this multi-ethnic and politically fragmented city, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday set a fortnight’s deadline for the preparations.The commission has also summoned a meeting on law and order situation across the country on Jan 2. It would be attended by top provincial and federal government officials including secretary defence and the chief secretaries of all the four provinces.The decision of verifying more than 8.6 million voters of Karachi and delimitation of its all 62 electoral constituencies was taken in a meeting of the top ECP management chaired by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (r) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim. “We have decided to go for engaging army in providing security to our staff during the voters’ verification and constituencies’ delimitation exercise,” ECP Secretary Ishtiak Ahmed Khan told journalists. He said the five-point agenda meeting also discussed recently held by-elections and dual-nationality issue.Apparently, the decision of involving military seems linked to the strong opposition from Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) against both verification of voters and delimitation of Karachi constituencies – 20 of National Assembly and 42 of Sindh Assembly. The ECP decision comes after the Supreme Court issued directions in this regard while hearing a petition filed by some major political parties for verification of voter lists in the city.According to the details provided by ECP secretary, the preparations for voters’ verification and delimitation of constituencies would kick off from December 17 after a request to be made to the defence ministry for deploying military troops. The Sindh Election Commission would also contact Karachi Corps headquarters for this purpose. The voters’ forms and relevant details collected during the verification drive would be handed over to the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) for getting them confirmed in the computerised database. Some 18,000 ECP personnel would be engaged to verify more than 8.6 million voters in Karachi. The entire exercise would take around or over two months. As per another report, the meeting decided that the updated voter lists would expectedly be displayed in Karachi in March.An ECP official said that Sindh Election Commissioner Sonu Khan Baloch would prepare a proposal on the delimitation of constituencies in Karachi within 15 days, following which, the delimitation drive would start. The verification and delimitation exercises would be conducted simultaneously. The voters’ verification would take almost a month before the data is sent to Nadra for verification, while the delimitation of constituencies would require two to three weeks, he added.Regarding the number of army troops required for this, the ECP official said, the commission wants the deployment of one military troop for providing security to each ECP staffer, thus indicating that at least 18,000 army men were needed. The ECP is reportedly set to engage the regular military troops for the electoral exercises in Karachi, while paramilitary troops like Rangers and Frontier Corps (FC) would also be engaged in the general elections. The matter would be discussed in the January 2 meeting.The Thursday meeting, according to ECP sources, endorsed a previous decision taken by the commission suggestive of presenting the ECP draft Code of Conduct in the Senate’s special panel on elections affairs, before holding a consultative meeting with the political parties to finalise it.Reportedly, the CEC was informed that only one legislator, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa MPA Engineer Javaid Iqbal, had not submitted his nationality affidavit, of the total lot of 15 presumed dual-national legislators. Senator Salahuddin Dogar has died. Three legislators – Syed Allauddin, Chaudhry Tassadduq and Maulana Qasim – submitted their oath statements with the ECP after their names had already been sent to the SC.Other 11 lawmakers, all of whom have resigned are: Haider Abbas Rizvi, Syed Tayyab Hussain, Dr Nadeem Ehsan, Fauzia Ejaz Khan, Sabeen Rizvi, Araish Kumar, Murad Ali Shah, Sadiq Ali Memon, Abdul Moid Siddiqui, Hassan Raza Taqvi and Raza Haroon. The election commission decided that it would take action against these lawmakers if ordered by the SC.Hinting at inaction on the seemingly blatant violations of the Code of Conduct during the nine by-polls held on December 4, the ECP secretary said that the electoral body had categorised as ‘general in nature’ the complaints on aerial firing and other violations in certain constituencies. “But if anybody wants to file a complaint, he/she can move our election tribunals,” he said in an implied indication that the violators of the proposed Code would not be proceeded against.“The general complains do not attract the application of Section 103 AA,” he said. The particular section of the People’s Representation Act 1976 provides for action against the elements that negatively influence the electoral process. Of the nine recent by-polls, eight were held in Punjab and one in Sindh. Initially, the ECP took ‘notice’ of the matter and instructed the respective provincial election commissioners to submit reports on the complaints of serious violations of the draft Code of Conduct before it ‘discovered’ that the complaints were of ‘general’ nature.