ECP suspends 77 MPs on reserved seats under SC order

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Monday suspended notification of the 77 candidates elected to reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies in the light of the Supreme Court’s decision on the petition of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

In all, as many as 44 legislators belonging to PMLN, 15 to Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), 13 to JUIF and one each to PML-Z, PTI-P, PML, MQM and IPP have been suspended.

PML-N has been the biggest sufferer of the development even in the National Assembly, as it has got suspended 14 of its members of the total 22 lawmakers, followed by PPPP with five members and JUIF with three.

According to a notification issued by the ECP, the membership of 22 elected members, including 19 women and three minority members, has been suspended for reserved seatsof the National Assembly.

Likewise, as per the notification, 21 women and four minority members were suspended from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, while 24 women and three minority members were suspended from the Punjab Assembly.

Accordingly, two women and a minority member of the Sindh Assembly were also suspended. The ECP suspended the membership of four women members of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), two members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUIF) and two women members of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Apart from this, the membership of two women members of the PPP and nine women members of the PMLN elected from Punjab on a reserved seat in the National Assembly has been suspended.

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court of Pakistan approved the petition on May 6 regarding the reserved seats of the SIC and suspended the decision of the ECP and Peshawar High Court to give reserved seats to other parties.

On March 4, the ECP had rejected applications for allotment of reserved seats to the SIC. It gave its ruling under Section 6 of Article 53 of the Constitution and Section 104 of the Elections Act, 2017 and rejected the SIC’s request for allotment of reserved seats. It was said in the decision that these specific seats will not remain vacant; these will be divided among political parties in a certain proportional representation method.