ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) on Tuesday submitted their respective replies in regard to the matter of not giving 5 per cent tickets to women to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), whereas Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) failed to submit a reply due to the absence of its lawyer.
Showing annoyance over PML-N’s failure to submit a reply, a two-member bench of the ECP said that there was something suspicious about the party’s lawyer being unavailable each time he is asked to appear before the commission. “They should hire another lawyer,” said the bench.
Senior leaders of PPP Nayyar Bukhari and Farhatullah Babar appeared before the commission on behalf of their party, whereas PML-N was represented by its office secretary.
The PPP gave the justification that tickets for 19 out of 252 National Assembly (NA) seats and 24 out of 514 provincial seats were given to females, which are a total of 43 seats.
The MMA in its reply said that 33 out of 616 seats were given to women, which equals more than 5 per cent.
Nayyar Bukhari also said that the ECP has remembered to take notice now that the election is done and assemblies are functional, whereas the matter should have been highlighted long before allotting election symbols.
