Election Commission announces By-Polls on 33 NA seats on March 16

ISLAMABAD, Jan 27 (SABAH): By-elections on 33 National Assembly seats, which fell vacant after NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Asraf accepted the resignations of the PTI lawmakers, will be held on March 16, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced on Friday.

According to the schedule issued by the ECP, nomination papers for the by-polls can be filed from February 6 to 8.

The constituencies where bye-elections will be held include: NA-04 Swat, NA-17 Haripur, NA-18 Swabi, NA-25 and NA-26 Nowshera, NA-32 Kohat, NA-38 Dera Ismail Khan, NA-43 Khyber, NA-52, 53, and NA-54 Islamabad, NA-57, 59, 60, 62 and NA-63 Rawalpindi, NA-67 Jhelum, NA-97 Bhakkar, NA-126 and NA-130 Lahore, NA-155 and NA-156 Multan, NA-191 Dera Ghazi Khan, NA-241, 242. 243, 244, 247, 250, 252, 254, and NA-256 Karachi and NA-265 Quetta.

The election watchdog said scrutiny of nomination papers will be held on February 9 while the election symbols will be allotted to the candidates on the 23rd of next month.

Earlier this month, the NA speaker accepted the resignations of 34 lawmakers belonging to the PTI and one member of the AML, in a bid to help Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif secure the confidence vote recently announced by the party’s chief Imran Khan.

A total of 123 PTI MNAs had resigned en masse on April 11 last year – two days after their party chairman was ousted as the prime minister through a no-confidence motion.