ISLAMABAD: The Elections Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced that polling for the 48 vacant seats in the upper house of parliament will take place across the four provinces on April 2. Candidates interested in contesting the elections must obtain nomination papers from the Election Commission headquarters and provincial election commissioners of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa starting Monday.
Nomination papers can be deposited with the relevant returning officers on March 15 and 16. The ECP will issue the schedule on March 14. According to ECP, the six-year term of the 52 senators elected in 2018 set to end on March 12, 2024. Additionally, with the merger of erstwhile FATA into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under the 25th Constitutional Amendment, the seats for four senators ceased to exist. As a result, the total number of senators to be elected has been reduced to 48 after the elimination of the four FATA seats.
The ECP announced that elections will be held for seven general seats, two seats reserved for women, two for scholars/technocrats, and one non-Muslim seat in Punjab. In Sindh, there will also be elections for seven general seats, two seats reserved for women, two for scholars/technocrats, and one non-Muslim seat. –Agencies
