ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top court said on Friday it would order polls to be held in the Punjab province on May 14 if the federal government and Imran Khan’s opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party failed to reach a consensus on holding elections on the same day across the country.

The warning was issued by a three-member Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, after it resumed hearing a petition requesting the top court to order elections be held on the same day across Pakistan.

Pakistan has for months been in the grips of a political crisis as ousted ex-PM Khan pushes for legislative assembly elections to be held this month in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, whose provincial parliaments were dissolved by him and his allies in January.

“The chief justice warned that if negotiations [between the government and the PTI] fail, the court would not sit idle and would ensure that the elections are held on May 14,” Pakistan’s top news channel, Geo News, reported. “We will use the constitution to ensure that the court’s order is followed.”

The chief justice also said the court would neither “interfere” in the negotiations nor give any instructions, but reminded the parties involved to begin the talks as soon as possible.

Multiple rounds of talks between ex-PM Khan and the Sharif government to decide on a consensus date for elections failed last week.

After weeks of delays and political wrangling after the KP and Punjab assemblies were dissolved, the Supreme Court in a three-to-two verdict on March 1 ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to fulfill its constitutional obligation and announce an election schedule for Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. 

The ECP subsequently said the vote in Punjab would be held on April 30 but later said it was impossible to hold it in April due to security and financial concerns. It announced October 8 as the new poll date in Punjab.

Khan’s PTI party then petitioned the Supreme Court, which on April 4 ruled that the ECP’s postponement decision was illegal and elections should be held in Punjab on May 14. The coalition government led by PM Shehbaz Sharif, however, insists that all elections in the country be held on the same date. General elections are currently scheduled for October.

On Friday, the top court began hearing a petition filed by a private citizen, Sardar Kashif Khan, calling for elections on the same date and listing the federal government, the Election Commission of Pakistan, and major political parties as respondents in the case.

The petition said it would be “in the interests of justice and equity as well as fulfillment of the constitutional imperatives (and balancing of competing constitutional requirements) if the general elections of National Assembly and all four provincial assemblies were held together rather than in piecemeal.”

It argued that elections across the country on the same day would be conducted under caretaker setups as per the constitution, which would “ensure that the general elections are carried out honestly, justly, fairly and in accordance with the law.”

“Having political governments in power in the provinces when general elections are being held for the National Assembly has the potential to adversely affect the National Assembly election more than in the inverse situation since provincial governments have operational control of all day-to-day affairs in the respective NA constituencies (other than those in ICT),” the petition added.

Holding elections simultaneously would also save billions of rupees and the expenses could be included in the budget for the upcoming year, the petition had said, adding that the army and police would also be required for election security duty once, allowing them to devote more time to their principal duties, including improving the country’s law and order situation at a time that militant attacks are on the rise.

The petition also contended that elections for the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies, if held in May, would be based on the results of the 2017 census while those for the National, Sindh, and Balochistan assemblies would be conducted on the latest census figures, as a census exercise is currently ongoing.