Islamabad LG polls: PM seeks summary to meet legal requirements

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has allowed to present a key summary before the federal cabinet for its approval in order to meet the legal requirements to hold the local government elections in the federal capital. Chief Commissioner Islamabad Sohail Ashraf said this before an Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) bench that heard a case regarding prolonged delay in the conduct of LG polls in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) on Tuesday. The four-member bench comprised of Nisar Ahmed Durrani, Shah Muhammad Jatoi, Babar Hassan Bharwana and Justice Ikram Ullah Khan (retd). The chief commissioner Islamabad informed the bench that the summary for the issuance of notifications regarding the limits of town corporations and the number of union councils in each town corporation in the ICT was sent to the Prime Minister’s Office by the Interior Ministry for approval from the federal cabinet. The PM, he said, allowed earlier on Monday to present the summary before the cabinet for its approval through circulation. The bench observed that the government needed to ensure that the said summary was approved by the cabinet before the next hearing of the ICT LG polls case. Separately, the same bench heard the case regarding Khyber Pakhtunkhwa LG elections case. Chief Secretary KP Shahab Ali Shah informed the ECP bench that the KP government had already provided the maps and relevant documents of 23 districts of the province to the ECP in which the electoral body had completed the constituencies’ delimitation drive. The chief secretary further informed that the provincial government also provided the required maps and relevant data regarding 15 districts where the delimitation drive was pending. The relevant data regarding eight newly established districts would be provided to the ECP with the approval of the provincial government, he said. The bench directed Shah to ensure that the required data was provided to the ECP before the next hearing of this case. The bench separately adjourned the ICT and LG polls cases till this month’s 28th. In the respective written orders issued on 1 July regarding the two cases, the ECP bench had noted that the federal and KP governments were not providing the required assistance to the ECP that was causing delay in holding the LG elections in the ICT and KP. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026