INP
LAHORE
By-election for two seats of Senate from Punjab, including a general and a reserved seat for women, will be held on Thursday. According to the details, the polling for Senate bye-election for a general and a seat reserved for women in the upper house of the parliament from Punjab province will be held on November 15. According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the polling will be held at provincial assembly building, Lahore from 0900 hours to 1600 hours. The seats have fallen vacant after the disqualification of PML-N’s Haroon Akhter Khan and Saadia Abbasi over dual nationality.
The commission called upon the members of the provincial assembly of Punjab to elect to the Senate a member from a general seat and member from the seat reserved for women from Punjab province.
The ECP had appointed Provincial Election Commissioner, Punjab Zafar Iqbal Hussain as Returning Officer besides five Polling Officers for the purpose of senate bye-election to fill two vacant seats from Punjab.
Earlier, the Pakistan People’s Party formally announced to support the PML-N in the Punjab Senate by-elections.
Hassan Murtaza announced the decision after receiving a go-ahead from PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. The PPP has seven MPAs in the House whereas the PML-N is the largest opposition party with 167 seats. Jointly, these two constitute 174 members. On the other hand, the PTI stands with 180 MPAs as the party with the largest number of seats in the House and its ally the PML-Q has 10 MPAs.
Apparently, the ruling coalition seems in a comfortable position to win the Senate by-polls, but the PML-N has fielded former parliamentarians Saud Majeed and Saira Afzal Tarar who also have strong connections with MPAs and any upset couldn’t be ruled out.
It said that the date of public notice by Returning Officer inviting nomination papers was October 29 while the October 31 was the last date for filing of nomination papers by the candidates with the Returning Officer.
The date for publication of names of the nominated candidates was November 1, while the last date for scrutiny of nomination papers was November 3. The last date for filing of appeals against acceptance or rejection of nominations was November 5 while the last date for disposal of appeals by the tribunal was November 7.
The last date for publication of revised list of candidates was November 8, while the last date for withdrawal of candidates was November 9.
