Eight appeals filed against RO decisions over Senate nominations from Sindh    

KARACHI: As many as eight appeals have been filed against the decisions of the returning officer (RO) over acceptance and rejection of the Senate nomination papers from Sindh province, ARY NEWS reported.     

The appeals were filed before the appellate bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC).

An appeal was filed against the acceptance of PTI’s Faisal Vawda’s nomination from a general seat by Qadir Khan Madokhail while two appeals were filed against another PTI candidate on technocrat seat Saifullah Abro by GM Khan and Shahid Ali.

An appeal was filed against PPP candidate Palwasha Khan by Indus Lawyers Forum’s Aaquib Rajpar.

The Senate nomination of MQM-P candidate, Shahab Imam was also confronted by a person named Tufail before the appellate bench of the SHC.

MQM-P’s Rauf Siddiqui and Syed Khizer Ali Zaidi and Yashaullah Khan Afghan of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) also challenged the returning officer’s decisions before the court against the rejection of their nominations.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Sindh chapter of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) notified on February 18 it has completed due inquiries into the nomination papers of all Senate contenders pitting for 11 seats of the province.

It said out of a total of 39 nomination papers it received for the impending polls, it accepted 35 of them following vetting.

Read More: ECP rejects nominations of PTI, PML-N Senate candidates from Punjab

From the province’s ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, the nomination papers of 14 candidates were furnished to the ECP however, after disqualifying one, the poll regulator accepted the remaining papers. Moreover, for the Center’s Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf, 11 out of a total of 12 papers were approved.

For Karachi’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan, after two of their nominations were quashed, ECP approved eight remaining. As Rauf Siddiqui did not have 16 years of education to qualify for a technocrat seat while one Askar Zaidi’s form was overturned as well.