ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday issued a list of candidates who filed nomination papers for by-election on a Senate seat that fell vacant after lifetime disqualification of PTI leader Faisal Vawda.
PPP Sindh president Nisar Khuhro, Gul Mohammad Jakhrani, Mukhtar Ahmed, Ajiz Damrah, Ali Palh, Shozeb Kapadia, Arsalan Agha, Aman Kazi and Tahir Shah are among those who filed nomination papers.
Polling for the vacant senate seat will be held on March 09 in the Sindh Assembly building, according to the electoral body.
On February 9, the ECP disqualified Faisal Vawda as a lawmaker over concealment of his dual nationality at the time of contesting the National Assembly election on a Karachi seat in the 2018 general elections.
The ECP also directed Vawda to return within two months the salary and other benefits he had received as a minister and parliamentarian. It also withdrew the notification declaring Vawda’s victory on a Senate seat in polls held last year.
The vote Vawda had cast in the Senate polls held on March 10, 2021, as a member of the National Assembly was also “invalid”, according to the short order announced by the chief election commissioner.
The ECP noted that during this case, Vawda accepted that he did not hold any kind of declaration regarding the renunciation of his US nationality at the time of filing his nomination papers for the National Assembly in 2018. This, the ECP said, means that the declaration he submitted as part of his nomination was “false”.
Later, Faisal Vawda filed a fresh application before the Supreme Court seeking urgent hearing of the petition against his lifetime disqualification from parliament.
In the fresh application, the former senator requested the Supreme Court to fix his ineligibility matter preferably during the week commencing from Feb 21.
