PTI moves PHC for reserve seats

Party's plea maintains PTI a listed party, has right to reserve seats

PESHAWAR:

The PTI filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday seeking to be allotted reserve seats in the national and provincial assemblies.

The ECP was made a respondent in the petition, demanding candidates who submitted their nomination papers for reserve seats and were scrutinized to be adjusted on those seats.

According to the party's plea, the PTI was a listed party and had the right to reserve seats.

The petition stated that the candidates who sought tickets on reserve seats were PTI members; all of them also submitted an affidavit in this regard. The ECP cannot delist any party, only the Supreme Court has the power to do so, the petition stated.

The PTI also requested the court to fix the petition for a hearing today.

With the February 8 general election results finally announced, the process of government formation and allocation of specific seats in the provincial assemblies has commenced.

The electoral watchdog has also outlined the procedure for distributing reserved seats among successful political parties, as well as for government formation.

Read Can PTI-loyalists really form government?

Successful political parties in the provincial assemblies will obtain reserved seats for women and minorities according to the outlined procedure.

In the Punjab Assembly, a party will be allocated one seat for women at a rate of 4.5%, equating to one reserved seat for every nine general seats. One seat will be allotted to a minority member of a party at a rate of 37.12%.

In the Sindh Assembly, out of the 130 general seats, 29 seats will be reserved for women and nine seats for minorities. According to the prescribed ratio for the allocation of reserved seats, one seat will be allocated for women at a rate of 4.48%, and one minority seat at a rate of 14.44%.

In the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly, out of the total 145 seats, 115 are general seats and a political party securing 73 seats can form its government.

In the K-P Assembly, one reserved seat will be allocated for women based on a ratio of 4.42%, and one minority seat will be allocated for every 29 general seats.

While in the Balochistan Assembly, any political party will be allocated one seat for women at a rate of 4.63%, and one minority seat for every 17 general seats.