PESHAWAR:
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) challenging the allocation of reserved seats in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly. The party has requested the court to restrain the newly selected members on reserved seats from taking oath until a final decision is made.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has been named as a respondent in the petition. Following the Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentarians (PTIP), PML-N has also turned to the court over what it terms as unfair distribution of reserved seats.
Filed through Barrister Saqib Raza, the PML-N’s petition argues that the party holds seven seats in the K-P Assembly.
However, the ECP has allegedly allocated ten reserved seats to Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) on the basis of seven general seats, while PML-N was only given eight reserved seats for the same number of general seats.
The party claims it initially won six general seats in the province, with one independent member joining its ranks within three days of the electionmaking its total seven. Despite this, the ECP allocated reserved seats only in proportion to six general seats, which the petitioner contends is unjust.
The petition urges the court to nullify the ECP’s notification regarding the distribution of reserved seats and direct the commission to revise the allocations.
