ECP announces by-polls on NA seats vacated by PTI

ECP announces by-polls on NA seats vacated by PTI. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced on Friday that it will hold by-polls on 33 vacant National Assembly seats on March 16.

As per the ECP announcement, candidates will be able to file their nomination papers between February 6-8.

The names of the candidates will be published on February 9 and the returning officers (RO) will carry out the scrutiny of the nomination papers till February 13.

The last date to file appeals against the RO’s decision on the acceptance or rejection of nomination papers is February 16.

According to the election schedule, the last date for the appellate tribunal to decide on the appeals is February 20. After this, the revised list of candidates will be published on February 21.

Read more: ECP denotifies last batch of PTI MNAs who resigned en masse

The last date to withdraw candidature and release of revised list of candidates is February 22 while the election symbols will be allotted on February 23 and the polls will be held on March 16.

The PTI lawmakers had tendered their resignations en masse after the Imran Khan-led government was ousted via a no-confidence motion in April of last year.

The PTI had claimed resignations were accepted by former deputy speaker Qasim Suri in absence of the speaker after Asad Qaiser’s resignation.

However, NA Speaker Ashraf, after approving 11 resignations of PTI lawmakers in July 2022, had stalled the process stating the remaining lawmakers would be summoned individually for verification.

However, contrary to his stance, he quickened the process once PTI, earlier this month, announced its return to the assembly and “test” the PM through a confidence vote.

So far, the resignations of 123 PTI MNAs have been accepted and all have been denotified.

The PTI resignations were accepted by NA Speaker Ashraf in four stages. Initially, only 11 resignations were accepted, while 34 resignations were accepted on January 17, another 35 on January 20 and now 43 have been approved.

On January 17, the speaker had also accepted the resignation of Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid. This meant that 35 resignations were accepted.

The by-polls are being held on the resignations that were accepted on January 17. However, the by-polls are being held on only 33 seats as two seats were of reserved seats of women.