ISLAMABAD:
The National Assembly regained its full strength on Wednesday as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) distributed reserved seats among the parliamentary parties in the house, in line with the decision of the Constitutional Bench (CB) of the Supreme Court last week.
In a 7-3 majority ruling in the reserved seats review case, the CB on Friday overturned the Supreme Court’s July 12, 2024 judgment, effectively taking away the reserved seats from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and handing them to their rival parties in the national and provincial legislatures.
The CB restored the March 25, 2024, order of the Peshawar High Court (PHC), which had deprived the Sunni Ittehad Council – the party joined by PTI-backed independents after the Feb 8, 2024 elections – of reserved seats. The decision effectively meant that the PTI was no longer a parliamentary party.
Therefore, the 77 reserved seats of the national and provincial assemblies were allocated among the parliamentary parties present in the respective assemblies, since they could not be kept vacant. As expected the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PKL-N) was the major beneficiary.
In the light of the CB decision, the ECP distributed 19 reserved seats in the National Assembly, out of which, according to an ECP statement, 13 went to the PML-N, four for the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) and two to the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).
After the allocation of the reserved seats, the ruling coalition, comprising PML-N, PPPP, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and other parties, surged above the two-thirds majority of 224 in the 336-strong house.
Acting on the court’s verdict, the ECP issued an order on Wednesday, withdrawing its notifications of July 24 and 29, 2024 that had declared some independent candidates, winning on the general seats of the national and provincial assemblies as PTI lawmakers.
In another order, the ECP notified the names of the returned candidates under various categories of the reserved seats with immediate effect. The National Assembly Secretariat later detailed the house composition, reflecting the actual party position after the court verdict and ECP’s distribution.
The data released by the Secretariat’s Legislation Branch showed that the strength of the treasury benches swelled to 235 seats, with 98 of the opposition, in the house currently comprised 333 lawmakerswith one member being suspended and two reserved seats remaining vacant.
The ECP also distributed the reserved seats in the provincial assemblies. In the K-P Assembly, 10 seats were given to the JUI-F, seven to the PML-N, six to the PPPP and one each to the PTI-Parliamentarians and Awami National Party (ANP).
The PML-N was given 23 seats in the Punjab Assembly – two to the PPPP and one each to the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP). In the Sindh Assembly, two seats were given to the PPPP and one to the MQM-P.
