elec-tion-ary [Election-in-1977]

Constitutional amendment for minority reserved seats.

ISLAMABAD:

The fourth amendment to the constitution, which came into effect from November 21, 1975, reserved six additional seats in the National Assembly for religious minorities, including Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Ahmadis.

The 1970 general elections were conducted under ordinances issued by the previous martial law government, since the new parliament had not drafted a law outlining the code of conduct for the elections.

Thus, the then president issued Ordinance 6 of 1976 on January 31, to reserve seats for the religious minorities in the elections. However, the ordinance only limited itself to setting the outlines.

The ECP announced it would hold elections to these seats on March 7, 1976. The last date to file the nomination papers was March 27 and polling was scheduled to take place on March 31.

Only six persons nominated by the ruling PPP filed nomination papers and won uncontested on March 28. The members included R M Andrews (a Christian representative from Peshawar), Dr Julian C Dean (a Christian representative from Sialkot), Prem Kavalram Shahani (a Hindu representative from Karachi), Bashir Masih (a Christian representative from Quetta), Bashir Tahir (an Ahmadi representative from Sheikhupura), Hubert Samuel Bedi (a Christian representative  from Muzzaffargarh).

Published in The Express Tribune, April 17^th, 2013.