ISLAMABAD: The election commission on Wednesday started scrutiny of the nomination papers of candidates submitted for the Senate elections.
The ECP will scrutinize the nomination papers of 170 candidates till Thursday (tomorrow). The nomination papers include 39 from Sindh, 29 from Punjab, 51 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 41 from Balochistan and 10 from the federal capital.
The ECP today approved the nomination papers of Hafiz Sheikh and Fauzia Arshad for general and women seats from Islamabad.
The nomination papers of PML-Q candidate Kamil Ali Agha, PTI’s Zarqa Taimoor and independent Jamshed Iqbal Cheema were approved for the senate seats from Punjab.
The scrutiny of the nomination papers of Azam Nazeer Tarar, a candidate of PML-N was deferred till tomorrow. Tarar has been asked to submit the party’s ticket till 5:00 pm tomorrow. In the absence of the party ticket his nomination papers could be approved as an independent candidate.
The ECP has approved nomination papers of People’s Party candidates for senate seats from Sindh, Sadiq Memon, Saleem Mandiwala, Jam Mehtab, Palwasha Khan, Sherry Rehman and Dost Ali Jaisar.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, during scrutiny the nomination papers of all Jamat Islami candidates approved, which includes Dr. Ataur Rehman for general seat, Dr. Muhammad Iqbal for technocrat, Inayat Begum for women seat and Javed Gill for minorities seat.
The nomination papers of the People’s Party’s Farhatullah Babar were also approved.
The candidates could file appeals against approval or rejection of nomination papers on February 20. The last date for disposing of the appeals is Feb 23.
The revised list of candidates will be published on February 24, while the candidates could take back their nomination papers on February 25.
The Senate polls are scheduled to be held on March 03.