LAHORE: For the first time in 76-year history of the Jamaat-i-Islami, women members of the Shoora attended a meeting of the consultative body whose sitting started here on Tuesday and will continue till Thursday.

Through an amendment to the party’s constitution the previous year, 10 seats had been reserved for women Arakeen (members with voting rights) in the central consultative body.

One each seat has been reserved for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan and four each for Punjab and Sindh.

Interestingly, only in KP the party has managed to form a coalition government – first in 2002-07 with Maulana Fazl’s JUI-F and presently with the PTI – but to the astonishment of many just one seat has been reserved for the province which has proven to be its stronghold.

The 10 Shoora members have been elected through a secret vote by 5,000 women Arakeen, says a party official.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2016