CB News
Speaker Arif Alvi on Sunday sent the Islamabad Local Government (Amendment) Bill without signing the draft after raising objections.
The bill aimed to increase the number of union councils to 125. The unsigned bill was returned under section (1)(b) of Article 75 of the Constitution of Pakistan.
The Speaker of the House said the said bill would cause further delays in the holding of the local body elections, adding that the federal government’s hasty steps had already postponed the elections twice and now another delay would not be good for democracy.
The President House objected that despite the competitive delimitation of 50 union councils and the announcement of the polling date of July 31, 2022, the federal government increased the number of CUs from 50 to 101, leading to a delay in the elections.
The ECP then announced to hold ICT elections after the delimitation of 101 CUs is completed on December 31, 2022. However, section 2 of the said bill mentions 125 CUs so the election has been postponed again.
In the official correspondence, it is said that the procedure for the election of mayor and deputy mayor has been changed after the announcement of the LG election calendar in section 3 of the said bill.
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