PESHAWAR: Of the five successful candidates nominated by the PTI for the National Assembly seats from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to join the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) for the reserved seats, only two—Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, Omar Ayub, and Ali Amin Gandapur—are accepted. The first two were excluded due to their involvement in the party’s internal elections.
Following their victory in K-P, 37 independent candidates supported by the PTI for the NA seats made the decision to join the SIC in order to obtain their allotted number of reserved seats.
Only thirty-one of them, nevertheless, combined with the SIC.
Ayub and Gohar have decided not to join the SIC due to the impending intra-party elections in the PTI.
Regarding Gandapur, he resigned from the NA and continued to serve in the provincial assembly after Imran Khan, the founder of the PTI, nominated him for the position of chief minister of K-P.
Due to the delay in issuing their gazette notifications of victory, Iqbal Afridi and Shahid Khattak, two more winning MNAs endorsed by the PTI, were unable to submit their joining forms to the SIC in time.
Following the PTI’s alliance announcement with the council, the SIC made an approach to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday, requesting the assignment of reserved seats in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures.
The PTI-backed candidates’ admission in the party was the foundation for the request that the ECP distribute the seats.
Through a PTI official, a request authored by SIC Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza was submitted to the polls supervising body.
The ECP has not yet determined whether to grant the request, nevertheless.
In addition to three seats set aside for minorities, the PTI-allied bloc will receive 22 reserved seats for women in the NA, 20 in K-P, and 27 in Punjab if the request is approved.
But as required by law, the SIC had neither filed a priority list of candidates prior to the elections, nor had it requested for any reserved seats to the ECP.
