LAHORE, Sept 22: Eight more people on Saturday collected nomination papers for the presidential elections on the second day of the opening of such forms raising the number of aspirants to 19.

Eleven people, all having no political status or known social background, collected the nominations from the office of provincial election commissioner which started distributing nomination papers from Friday.

Pakistan Christian National Party chairperson Joseph Francis and Mohmmad Ashfaq Chaudhery, who has been heading the Musharraf Himayat Tehreek (Support Musharraf Movement) and now heads People’s Forum, were prominent among those who collected the nomination papers from election commission’s provincial office on the second day.

Of them, Mr Francis is believed to have a covert backing from the Pakistan People’s Party that its members in the national and provincial assemblies would vote for him in the run for the presidency if he would be declared eligible to contest.

The PCNP chief has also moved the Supreme Court to strike down Article 41 (2) of the Constitution, which provides that only a Muslim citizen qualifies to be a presidential candidate, being “discriminatory”.

He also challenged Articles 2 (Islam to be the state religion), 2-A (Objectives Resolution), 31 (Islamic way of life), 203-A to 203-J (Federal Shariat Court) and all other articles which were in conflict with the fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution, pleading that the country’s basic law could not contain provisions which discriminated against citizens on the basis of religion.