ECP to hear SIC application seeking reserved seats tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will hear the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) application seeking allotment of reserved seats tomorrow (Tuesday), ARY News reported on Monday.

The religious party has moved the electoral watchdog seeking allotment of reserved seats in national and provincial assemblies after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed members joined their ranks.

A five-member bench of the ECP will hold the open hearing tomorrow at 10:00am.

The PTI announced that its independent candidates would join the Sunni Ittehad Council to form governments at the Centre, in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a bid to secure reserved seats.

The 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.

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.