The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has initiated the process of allocating reserved seats for women and minorities to other parliamentary parties after denying those to the PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).
According to notifications issued by the ECP, three reserved seats for minorities in the National Assembly have been allocated to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F).
Furthermore, two reserved seats for women in lower house of Parliament from Punjab have been allotted to PML-N and PPP.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s three minority seats have been allocated to PML-N, PPP, and JUI-F each securing one seat.
The ECP has also issued notifications for reserved seats for women in the Sindh Assembly. Notably, PPP’s Sumeta Afzal Syed and MQM-P’s Fouzia Hameed have been given the reserved seats for women. The reserved seat for minorities in Sindh Assembly has been given to PPP’s Sadhu Mal alias Surinder Valasai.
Following the allocation, PML-N becomes the largest parliamentary party in National Assembly (NA) with 123 seats followed by PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) with 82 seats. Meanwhile, Bilawal Bhutto-led PPP managed to secure 73 seats.
Read More: ECP announces decision on Sunni Ittehad Counci’s reserved seats
PTI candidates contested the elections as independents after the Supreme Court upheld the election supervisor’s decision, considering its intra-party polls “unconstitutional” and revoked its claim on the electoral symbol of ‘bat’.
As per the Constitution, the reserved seats are allocated to the political parties on the basis of the number of their lawmakers elected on the general seats. For their allocation, the ECP had already received the priority list of candidates from the parties before the Feb 8 polls.
Read More: PTI calls for ECP’s resignation after reserved seats verdict
The situation this year is different from the previous elections as the largest group of lawmakers are independents, who cannot have the reserved seats.
There are a total of 346 reserved seats for women – 60 in the NA and 66, 29, 26, and 11 in the provincial legislatures of Punjab, Sindh, K-P, and Balochistan.
Similarly, there are 10 reserved seats for minorities in the lower house. Besides, there are eight, nine and three reserved seats for minorities in the Punjab Sindh, and Balochistan assemblies.
Sunni Itthead Council, in its letter, stated that 86 independent candidates of the National Assembly had joined his party, adding that 107 independents of Punjab Assembly, 90 of K-P Assembly and nine independent members of Sindh Assembly now garnered the support of the SIC.
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