PESHAWAR
\nAfter the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) postponed the Senate polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur reiterated that they won\u2019t allow lawmakers elected on reserved seats to take an oath.
\n\u201cThose who became [assembly] members illegally will not be allowed to take oath […] We will not compromise on our constitutional right,\u201d Gandapur said while speaking to the media outside the KP Assembly in Peshawar on Tuesday.
\nHis remarks come after Senate elections were postponed in the province by the ECP after it was moved by the opposition parties in the wake of their ongoing stand-off with the government over the oath-taking issue. Pakistan Peoples Party\u2019s (PPP) Ahmad Karim Kundi, in a plea filed with the commission, had said that 25 of his party\u2019s members have not yet been sworn in and requested that the polls be postponed.
\nIn response to the postponement of polls, the chief minister, while lamenting the allocation of reserved seats to other political parties, said that the Constitution was \u201crepeatedly being violated\u201d. \u201cWe will fight this and will not back down,\u201d Gandapur said, further stressing that the party would \u201cstrongly protest\u201d against the move.
\nHe further announced that a resolution would be passed regarding the future course of action in the parliamentary party\u2019s meeting.
\nMeanwhile, reacting to the development, KP Assembly Opposition leader Ibadullah Khan fired a broadside at the KP chief minister saying that \u201cthese people neither obey the courts nor the ECP […] but only obey \u2018prisoner 804\u2019 (a reference to the incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan)\u201d.
\n\u201cThe assembly speaker is the custodian of the house [who] is absent today and failed to fulfil his duty,\u201d Khan said while speaking to the media outside the KP Assembly.
\n\u201cOur position is that the Senate polls should be held only after the swearing-in of the elected members. \u201cSenate elections didn\u2019t take place due to the government\u2019s stubbornness. It is unfortunate that, unlike the rest of the country, Senate elections are not being held here [in KP],\u201d the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader said.
\nA day earlier, KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati on Monday filed a review plea in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) over the direction issued by the court to administer the oath to the lawmakers elected on reserved seats.
\nOath-taking on reserved seats in KP has been subject to controversy owing to the deadlock between the provincial government and opposition parties.
\nThe issue is crucial for both the ruling and opposition parties in the wake of the province\u2019s 11 seats in the upper house of the parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PESHAWAR After the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) postponed the Senate polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur reiterated that they won\u2019t allow lawmakers elected on reserved seats to take an oath. \u201cThose who became [assembly] members illegally will not be allowed to take oath […] We will not compromise on our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-news"],"yoast_head":"\n