Senate polls in KP assembly postponed

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday postponed polling for the vacant seats of Senate in the KP assembly on account of delay in oath taking of members on reserved seats.

The election for the Senate, meanwhile, continued in the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Sindh.

The government of KP earlier did not hold the assembly session to enable the 25 new reserved seat members all belonging to the opposition to take oath. Hence, the opposition members wanted to get the election delayed.

In case of the election, the government side would win about 10 of the 11 vacant seats while the opposition would get four of them in the upper house of parliament if the polls are conducted after oath taking of the new members.

As the election did not start at 9am on Tuesday, provincial election commissioner Shamshad Khan reached the assembly and sought a list of the sworn-in MPAs from the assembly staff.

At the same time, the opposition petitioned the ECP to postpone the Senate elections there.

Subsequently, the ECP issued a notification of the poll postponement, which referred to its March order wherein it had rejected a petition filed by the Sunni Ittehad Council — the new face of the PTI — seeking the allocation of reserved seats.

According to Radio Pakistan, polling is being held in NA for the election of two senators. Meanwhile, polling is being held in Punjab on five seats — two women and technocrats seats each and one minority women seat — and 12 in Sindh — seven general seats, two women and technocrat seats, and one minority seat.