ECP announces successful candidates on NA’s minority seats

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced names of successful candidates for the National Assembly’s (NA) reserved seats for minorities, ARY News reported on Friday.

According to details, the electoral watchdog issued a notification regarding seven successful candidates for the National Assembly’s (NA) reserved seats for minorities.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) got four minority seats, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) two, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) one.

The PML-N’s newly-elected members on minority seats include Khail Das Kohistani, Dr Darshan, Nelson Azeem, and Asfandyar Bhandara.

The PPP members include Ramesh Lal and Naveed Amir, whereas, Mahan Manjiyani belongs to MQM-P. As per the ECP’s declaration, the matter related to the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) reserved seats in the lower house of parliament is pending.

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: No decision yet on allocation of reserved seats to SIC

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.