PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has requested additional staff from the federal government in preparation for the general elections that are scheduled for February 8, The News reported on Wednesday. This decision was made in light of the current security scenario.
In this context, KP’s Caretaker Chief Minister Syed Arshad Hussain Shah chaired a significant meeting in Peshawar to assess the provincial government’s readiness for holding elections.
Abid Majeed, the additional chief secretary for home affairs, Inspector General of Police Akhtar Hayat Khan Gandapur, Chief Secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhary, and KP ministers Dr. Aamir Abdullah and Barrister Mian Feroz Jamal Shah Kakakhel were among the other authorities present at the meeting.
Through a video link, regional police officers and divisional commissioners were also present at the meeting.
Plans for security
The gathering was informed that seven security people would be stationed at each sensitive polling place in the remaining districts, while eleven security personnel would be stationed at each sensitive polling place in the province’s combined and southern belt districts.
In the combined and southern districts, four security officers would be stationed at each of the regular polling places, while seven security officers would be stationed at each of the sensitive polling places.
In contrast, five security guards would be stationed at each important location and four at each regular voting place in the remaining districts. It was also advised that just 89,959 police people would be needed, whereas the provincial administration would need 115,430 security personnel in total to organize general elections.
Elections would be conducted for 115 general seats in the KP Assembly and 45 general seats in the National Assembly.
In order to do that, 15,737 polling places would be built throughout the province, of which 4,812 are designated as the most sensitive, 6,581 as sensitive, and 4,344 as standard.
It was also announced that 1,919 voting places would be set up throughout the province’s snow-bound regions. There are 21,692,381 registered voters in the province as a whole.
‘All-out’ effort by the government to ensure calm elections
For the approaching general elections, similar emergency measures for rescue and health have also been devised. CM Shah declared that the province government would use every effort to ensure that general elections are conducted in a transparent, equitable, and non-violent way.
For this reason, he gave all divisional commissioners, RPOs, deputy commissioners, and DPOs instructions to make sure the province government’s objectives and decisions are carried out in full.
A number of KP districts, particularly the southern ones, have seen a decline in peace and order over the past few years due to a spike in attacks on law enforcement, security personnel, and civilians.
In certain instances, the terrorists also assaulted political persons and events.While attempts were being made to strengthen peace and order in the southern regions, senior police officials said that other sections of the province were seeing improvements in the situation.
