PESHAWAR: Scrutiny of election papers for Peshawar completed
By Waseem Ahmad Shah
PESHAWAR, Dec 3: Returning officers completed scrutiny of about 313 nomination papers filed for four National Assembly and 11 NWFP assembly seats of the provincial capital.
A total of eight nomination papers, including that of a woman, have been rejected on different grounds. A total of 83 nomination papers have been scrutinised for the National Assembly and 230 for the provincial assembly seats.
Appeals against rejection or acceptance of nomination papers may be filed till Dec 7, whereas the Appellate Tribunal will decide the appeals by Dec 14.
The returning officer for NA-1, Naeem Iqbal, rejected nomination papers of Muhammad Ismael Darvesh, Safeerullah Khan and Ziarat Shah on the ground that the names of their proposers and seconders were not in the electoral roll of the constituency.
The nomination papers of Zahid Hussain were also rejected for NA-1 as he did not turn up during scrutiny. The papers of Nasir Francis were rejected as he had filed the said papers for minority reserved seats instead of for NA-1.
Similarly, the returning officer for NA-2, Gohar Rehman Khan, rejected nomination papers of Jehangir Rehman as his proposer and seconder were not in the voters’ list of the constituency.
The papers of a female candidate, Shumaila Tabassum, filed for provincial assembly constituency PF-2, were also rejected on the ground that her proposer and seconder were not from the said constituency.
The papers of Tahir Zaman for PF-11 provincial assembly constituency were rejected by RO Muhammad Qasim on the ground that he had not attained 25 years of age, the minimum age limit for contesting the general election under the Constitution.
Meanwhile, Provincial Election Commissioner Akhter Hussain Sabir has completed scrutiny of nomination papers filed for the eight women’s reserved seats for the National Assembly from NWFP, 22 women’s reserved seats for the provincial assembly and three non-Muslim reserved seats for the NWFP Assembly.
The commissioner rejected 20 nomination papers out of 48 filed for the National Assembly women’s reserved seats.
Similarly, out of 109 nomination papers for women’s reserved seats for the NWFP provincial assembly, the commissioner rejected papers of five female candidates.
Moreover, of the 36 papers filed against non-Muslim reserved seats the commissioner rejected 15 papers.
Most of the papers for the reserved seats were rejected as the names of these candidates were not present in the list of nominees submitted by the political parties.
Under the Constitution and the Conduct of General Election Order 2002 the reserved seats have to be filled through proportional representation in accordance with the number of general seats win by a political party.
