960411

Five lakh more voters

registered in Karachi

SHAHID IQBAL

KARACHI: Five lakh new voters have been registered in Karachi since October 1995 to date, 11th April 1996, said a high official of Election Commission on Thursday.

Registration of new voters have come to an end on Thursday registering a total vote of about 4 million. The number of votes was about 3.5 million in October 1995. "Since then 5,00,000 new voters have been registered which is a positive sign indicating public interest", said a high official of EC.

Election Commission will not extend further the date for registration or complaints, he added. The EC had extended date for two weeks for new registration and complaints. The officials of EC said that they have completed their job and did not feel like extending the date any further.

In several visits to election offices in districts East and Central, it was observed that very few people visited the offices and in most of the cases they wanted to be sure in getting registered. However, the field workers, teachers, complained that people did not cooperate with them. "Some times we had to visit six times to receive the registration forms but failed. Some people even threw out the registration forms", said Ata Mohammad, a teacher working for EC in district East.

Workers said that in the districts Central and West which have been affected by law and order situation, registration of voters posed a tough job for the workers. "In these areas women were not ready to open their doors in the absence of their male members which created hurdles for the workers. We had to visit late night to receive their registration forms", said a worker at Jamshed Road area.

The EC officials denied that the teachers did not perform their duties which resulted in leaving thousands of voters unregistered. However, some of the officials were of the view that number of voters could increase if people would have taken more interest. "Its a fact that many people in all districts kept themselves away from getting involved in election process. In some places people were afraid of being registered as voters. Voting is risky in some places because of political compulsion", said a worker at district East office.

The EC officials were not aware about the break-up of voters in different districts of Karachi, however, some officials had estimated that district East registered maximum number of voters. The break-up of voters will be available in four days, said the officials of EC.