KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) has decided to field former finance minister Miftah Ismail for expected by-polls on NA-245 consutituency from Karachi.
The seat fell vacant after Federal Minister Faisal Vawda tendered his resignation from the National Assembly to participate in the Senate elections.
Miftah Ismail will be PML-N’s candidate from the NA-249 Karachi seat. The PML-N leader will be a joint candidate of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has yet to announce its decision regarding Vawda’s disqualification and holding of by-polls in the constituency.
On Wednesday, the Islamabad High Court had declared that it could not disqualify Federal Minister for Water Resource Faisal Vawda after his resignation from the National Assembly seat.
The court has, however, instructed the ECP to decide the matter of submission of an allegedly false affidavit by Vawda along with his nomination papers for the July 2018 polls.
On Saturday, Islamabad High Court (IHC) has issued a detailed order in the disqualification case of Federal Minister Faisal Vawda.
On March 3, Justice Aamer Farooq had 3 disposed of the petition challenging Vawda’s election after the minister submitted his resignation from the National Assembly. In the detailed order, the court stated that the affidavit submitted by the PTI leader regarding his dual nationality is “false”.
The court, however, said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should probe the matter and pass any appropriate order. The judgment noted that since the lawmaker has resigned as Member National Assembly no writ order can be issued with respect to holding dual nationality.
“The matter of furnishing false affidavit is to be probed by the Election Commission of Pakistan since the same was submitted before it and the Commission may pass appropriate orders with respect to the same,” it added.
The court also observed that the responded “lingered on the matter by not filing reply under one pretext or the other which delayed the adjudication of the matter”.
Vawda had won the 2018 general election from Karachi’s NA-249 constituency. In January last year, it was revealed that Vawda had committed perjury by falsely declaring in an oath to the ECP that he did not hold any foreign nationality.
Vawda was reportedly in possession of a United States passport at the time he filed his nomination papers and remained an American national even during the scrutiny of his nomination papers.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan had ruled that candidates who hold dual nationality are supposed to submit a renunciation certificate of the foreign nationality along with their nomination papers.
