Speaker Punjab Assembly suspends reserved seats given to govt parties

LAHORE: In a major setback to the ruling party in the Punjab assembly, the speaker of the house suspended the reserved seats for women and minorities given to the coalition parties on Friday.

Speaker Punjab Assembly Malik Ahmad Khan suspended the seats in the light of the Supreme Court’s decision to annul the ECP and PHC verdict on the issue of the allocation of Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) reserved seats to other parties.

Speaker Malik Ahmed Khan presided over the session of the Punjab Assembly which started with a delay of 2 hours.

During the session, the Speaker declared the point of order of opposition member Rana Aftab as correct on reserved seats.

READ MORE: Supreme Court suspends PHC, ECP’s verdict denying Sunni Ittehad Council reserved seats 

Later, the Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan mentioned the decision of the Supreme Court in the House and ordered the suspension of the reserved seats from today. Members of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) welcomed the ruling of the Speaker Punjab Assembly.

The minimum number of suspended members of the ruling coalition is 27 including 24 reserved seats for women and three for minorities named Tariq Masih Gul, Waseem Anjum, and Basro Ji.

Suspended members on women-reserved seats include Maqsoodan Bibi, Rubina Nazir, Salma Zahid, Kanwal Nauman, Zeiba Ghafoor, Saeedah Samreen Taj, Shahr Bano, Amna Parveen, Syeda Sameera Ahmed, Uzmi Butt, Afshan Hussain, Shagufta Faisal, Nasreen Riaz, Sajda Naveed, Farzana Abbas, Maria Talal, Tasheen Fawad, Abida Bashir, Sadia Muzaffar, Faiza Momina, Amira Khan, Samia Atta, Rahat Afza, and Rukhsana Shafiq.