'Inundated areas, security threats' fail to dissuade ECP from LG polls in Sindh.

HYDERABAD -- As the provincial government's attempts to delay Sunday's local body elections on one pretext or another met with failure, the ruling PPP seems confident that it would claim victory in the battle for mayor-ship of Hyderabad.

PPP's hopes are rooted in the fact that Hyderabad city's muniAcipal limits have been defined in a way that suits the party; it has merged rural and Qasimabad talukas in the Hyderabad MuniAcipal Corporation (HMC).

'I want a jiyala mayor in Hyderabad,' Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had declared at a Kissan rally in the city last year.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) did not agree with the Sindh government's conAAtention that some flood-hit constituencies in Dadu district wouAld be unable to go to the polls, and that there were security threats to the electoral exercise.

In order to defer the polls for a fourth time, the Sindh government even withdrew the Dec 31, 2021 notification that defined the new limits of Hyderabad Municipal Corporation - one of the demands of the MQM-P.

The ECP, however, was having none of it. It had even declined a similar request for Dadu district's talukas of Khairpur Nathan Shah and Mehar, which still remain badly affected by last year's floods.

These two areas, the government had argued, were still inundated as per a report filed by the deputy commissioner/district returning officer (DRO).

'In order to determine the factual situation, ECP got verification done as far as Dadu's conditions were concerned,' an ECP official said.

To this end, a committee was formed by Provincial Election Commissioner (PEC) Aijaz Anwar Chohan on Jan 5. The committee members visited Dadu on...