Elections on 33 NA seats on March 16

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Friday announced the schedule for by-elections in 33 constituencies of the National Assembly and fixed the polling for March 16. The seats had fallen vacant a few days back.

The notification says the returning officers (ROs) will issue a public notice in this regard on February 3 while the candidates will be able to file their nomination papers with the ROs from February 06-08, followed by issuance of a list of the nominated candidates next day.

The scrutiny of documents will be carried out till February 13, followed by publication of the revised list of candidates on February 21. However, the candidates will be able to withdraw their candidature the next day and the final list of candidates will be issued the same day.

The candidates will be allotted election symbols on February 23 and the polling will be conducted on March 16.

The seats were vacated when the National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf quickly moved to accept the resignations of 34 PTI lawmakers, including the two who had made their way to the legislature on women reserved seats, and one belonging to AML, whereas all the PTI legislators, had tendered resignations en masse in April last year, following the ouster of first ever prime minister through a no-confidence vote.

The 34 lawmakers, whose resignations were accepted include Murad Saeed, Omar Ayub Khan, Asad Qaiser, Pervaiz Khattak, Imran Khattak, Sheharyar Afridi, Ali Amin Khan, Noorul Haq Qadri, Raja Khurram Shahzad Nawaz, Ali Nawaz Awan, Asad Umar, Sadaqat Ali Khan, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Sheikh Rashid, Shafique, Mansoor Hayat Khan, Fawad Ahmed, M Sanaullah Khan Mastikhel, Muhammad Hammad Azhar, Shafqat Mahmood Khan, Malik Muhammad Amir Dogar, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Hussain Qureshi, Zartaj Gul, Faheem Khan, Saifur Rehman, Muhammad Alamgir Khan, Syed Ali Haider Zaidi, Aftab Hussain Saddique, Atta-Ullah, Aftab Jehangir, Muhammad Najeeb Haroon, and Muhammad Qasim Khan Suri.

The by-elections will be held in these constituencies: NA-04 Swat-III NA-17 Haripur-I NA-18 Swabi-I NA-25 Nowshera-I NA-26 Nowshera-II, NA-32 Kohat NA-38 D I Khan-I NA-43 Khyber-I NA-52 Islamabad-I NA-53 Islamabad-II NA-54 Islamabad-III NA-57 Rawalpindi-I NA-59 Rawalpindi-III NA-60 Rawalpindi-IV NA-62 Rawalpindi-VI NA-63 Rawalpindi-VII NA-67 Jhelum-II NA-97 Bhakkar-I NA-126 Lahore-IV NA-130 Lahore-VIII NA-155 Multan-II NA-156 Multan-III NA-191 Dera Ghazi Khan-III NA-241 Korangi Karachi-III NA-242 Karachi East-I NA-243 Karachi East-II NA-244 Karachi East-III NA-247 Karachi South-II NA-250 Karachi West-III NA-252 Karachi West-V NA-254 Karachi Central-II NA-256 Karachi Central-IV and NA-265 Quetta-II.