'Strict scrutiny� of nomination papers

ISLAMABAD: Election Commission of Pakistan would start scrutiny phase of nomination papers from today (Monday) as more than 7,000 candidates filed nomination forms till the end of the deadline.
ECP additional Secretary Muhammad Afzal Khan made it clear that there would be merciless scrutiny of candidates� nomination papers. �Only those candidates will win who will get the votes from people. No one will be able to get votes on the basis of intimidation,� he maintained.
According to the ECP spokesman, around 2,013 nomination papers has been received for National Assembly while around 4,029 papers has been received for provincial assembly.




He said out of those 7,000 nomination papers received, around 3,000 have been scrutinized, adding that the scrutiny of 957 candidates for National Assembly had been completed.
The number of nomination papers filed dropped by above 50 percent election-on-election basis. It must be mentioned that as many as 15,000 candidates had lodged nomination forms with the ECP five years back, however, for Election 2013 only above 7,000 wannabe-lawmakers submitted papers.
Experts attribute this drop to the tougher preconditions set by ECP this time around.
Earlier on Sunday, the Election Commission of Pakistan extended the deadline for submission of the election nomination papers till 12:00 AM April 1, 2013.
The ECP would carry out the scrutiny of nomination papers from April 1 to 7.