ISLAMABAD: A day af ter appointing the Regional Election Commissioner, Peshawar Division, as the District Returning Officer (DRO) for the forthcoming local government election in Islamabad, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) decided to review the decision.

Dawn has learnt that most likely a Grade 19 ofñcer of the ECP head ofñce in Islamabad will be notified Thursday afternoon as the new DRO for the federal capital.Official sources denied the change, decided late Wednesday, involved any political reasons.

ECP spokesman Khursheed Alam would only say that `if the decision is changed, it would be only to facilitate the election process. It could be cumbersome for an officer to come from Peshawar to conduct elections in Islamabad.

About the initial appointment, he said: `It was solely based on the experience the officers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa gained recently in conducting local government polls.Local government election in Islamabad is to be held on July 25 on the directives of the Supreme Court.

Although delimitation of the constituencies in the federal capital territory is expected to be ñnalised by June 15, the ECP in its rush to clear grounds for smooth conduct of the election has already notified the names of the returning officers (ROs) for 79 union councils (UCs), both in urban and rural Islamabad.

Even the much bigger task of the parliament passing a relevant law for holding the first-ever local government election inIslamabad is pending. The Senate has passed the bill but the National Assembly`s and the Presidential assent for the same are awaited.

Some observers see little chance of the National Assembly doing that during its current budget session and expect a presidential ordinance to make the local government polls in Islamabad possible.

`If the relevant law is not passed and assented by June 20, it would be difficult to hold the elections on July 25 as stipulated,` said an of ficial of the election commission.