PTI vanishes from NA as a party

ISLAMABAD:

Imran Khan's PTI is no longer recognized as a parliamentary party in the lower house according to the new party position issued by the National Assembly Secretariat. All the 80 lawmakers who reached the NA with the blessing of the PTI are now shown as members of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

The updated party position came in the wake of a letter of NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq addressed to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The PTI candidate were compelled to contest the February 8 general elections as independents in view of a Supreme Court verdict and its faulty interpretation by the ECP,

Eighty such independent candidates had reached the National Assembly and later joined the SIC in an apparent bid to claim reserved seats for women and minorities. The ECP had, however, refused to allocate the party the additional seats, a decision that the SIC challenged in the Supreme Court.

On July 12, a full bench of the apex court through a majority of 8 to 5 resurrected the PTI as a parliamentary party, noting that 39 of the lawmakers who had submitted certificates of their affiliation with the PTI along with their nomination papers were already PTI lawmakers.

The SC had ruled that the remaining 41 lawmakers who had not submitted the affiliation certificates at the time of nomination papers' submission could do that now within a period of 15 days.

The ruling coalition while filing a review petition against the SC ruling had amended the country's election law—the Election Act, 2017—barring lawmakers from changing their party after election.

While the SC laid emphasis on allocating the reserved seat to the PTI, NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq sent a letter to the ECP, requesting it to allocate the reserved seats in line with the new amendments.

The letter said any member of parliament who did not submit a party certificate with their nomination papers would be considered an independent candidate. Furthermore, independent members who joined a political party would not be permitted to switch affiliations.

On the heels of the letter, the NA Secretariat issued the new party position through a notification dated September 18, outlining the distribution of seats among various parties.

The government benches include 110 members of the PML-N; 69 members of the PPP, and 22 members of the MQM-P. Smaller parties like the PML-Q and Muslim League-Zia hold five and one seats, respectively, with BAP and the NP each having one seat.

The opposition benches now comprise 80 members of the SIC, eight members of the JUI-F, and eight independent members supported by the PTI.

Additional representation comes from PkMAP, the BNP-M, and the MWM, each with one seat.

The National Assembly currently has 213 members on the government benches, excluding 20 reserved seats, while the opposition has 80 members from the SIC in addition to one member each from other smaller parties.

Meanwhile, one independent member on the opposition side recently joined the PML-N.

According to the National Assembly Secretariat, PML-N has been allocated 15 reserved seats, while the PPP and the JUI-F have been given five seats each.

However, these reserved seats are not included in the official count. The total number of members in the National Assembly currently stands at 313, excluding the 23 reserved seats. Once the 23 vacant and disputed seats are allocated, the total number of members in the assembly will rise to 336.