PESHAWAR: With three days left for the filing of nomination papers, three candidates on Monday submitted applications to the returning officer for the seats reserved for women in the National and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies and non-Muslims in the provincial assembly.

An official told Dawn that former PTI MPA Zarin Riaz filed nomination papers for both the reserved seats in the National assembly and KP Assembly and PML-N’s Shakeel Chandar for the seats reserved for non-Muslims in the provincial assembly.

He said the two filed papers with provincial election commissioner Pir Maqbool Ahmad, who is the returning officers for the seats reserved for women and non-Muslims in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and women reserved seats in the National Assembly from KP.

They include PTI’s Zarin Riaz, PML-N’s Shakeel Chandar, and Zareen Zia

The official said normally, most of the candidates preferred to file nomination papers on the last two days. Under the law, every political party had to submit its priority list of candidates for the reserved seats in the said three categories.

These seats have to be filled on basis of proportional representation of seats which would be won by a political party in the general elections.

Zareen Zia has filed her papers but she has yet to be mentioned in her party’s priority list of candidates.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has directed all parties to submit their lists until June 8, which is also the last date for filing of nomination papers. Under the law independent candidates cannot contest for these reserved seats.

Polling will take place on July 25.

According to the schedule, the scrutiny of nomination papers by the returning officers will take place by June 14. June 19 is the last date for filing of appeals against the decisions of the returning officers and June 26 for deciding the appeals by the appellate tribunal.

The revised list of candidates will be made public on June 27 and the date for withdrawal of nomination papers will be June 28. Allocation of symbols to the candidates and list of contesting candidates will be issued on June 29.

The minimum age for a candidate under the Constitution is 25 years. The candidates had also to deposit fee of Rs30,000 with the nomination paper for National assembly constituency and Rs20,000 fee with nomination paper for a provincial assembly seat.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2018