KARACHI, Aug 23: With only 24 hours left on Friday for political parties and aspiring candidates to file nomination papers, only 73 nominations have been deposited so far with the returning officers and assistant returning officers since August 19.

After the announcement of the election schedule on last Friday, during seven working days over 2000 nomination forms were sold for 20 seats of the national assembly and 41 seats of the provincial assembly.

The security deposit for the national assembly seat is Rs4000 and for the provincial seat it is Rs2000. The money is liable to be forfeited if the candidate fails to get less than one eighth of the total votes polled in the constituency.

On Friday, till office hours a total 48 nomination papers were submitted to the ROs and AROs in former five districts— 12 in West, 4 in Central, 9 in South, 17 in East and 6 in Malir. Earlier, 6 and 19 nominations were deposited on Thursday and Wednesday respectively

Out of the 48 nominations submitted on Friday, 21 are for the NA seats and 27 are for the PA seats. Contrary to expectations, the Muttahida Majlis Amal (an alliance of six religious parties) filed 13 nominations on Friday— eight for the NA and five for the PA. The MQM( Haqiqi) has filed eight nominations— two for the NA and 6 for the PS seats.

The lacklustre situation is attributed to the rather confusing requirements of the nomination forms.

The leadership of the mainstream political parties in the city— the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the PPP and the PML( Nawaz)— till Friday remained engrossed in collecting certificates required to be submitted along with nominations.

According to the circles close to the main political parties, they have planned to submit en block on Saturday, which is the last day for submission of nomination papers.

However, on Friday four PPP candidates, all from District South, deposited their nomination forms— three for the NA and one for the PA. One PML (N) candidate submitted his nomination. The PML(Q) filed three nominations— one for the NA and two for the PA.

Another alliance which figured on Friday is the National Alliance which submitted two forms— one for the NA seat and the other for the PA.

The other parties whose candidates filed nominations on Friday are the Labour Party Pakistan, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek, the Pakistan Freedom Party, besides the independents.

Among the prominent candidates who filed nominations on Friday are:

Syed Munawar Hassan of Jamaat-i-Islami from NA 245, Syed Zia Abbas of the National Alliance from NA-239, A. Raziq Khan of the PML(Q) from NA-241, Nabeel Gabol of the PPP from NA- 248, Abdul Sattar Afghani of the MMA from NA-250, Muhammad Umar Baloch of the Labour Party from NA-251, Muhammad Aslam Mujahid of the MMA from NA-255, Azeem Khan of the PML(N) from PS-89 and Muhammad Yunus Khan of the MQM(H) from PS-122.

According to the election schedule, nomination papers will be received till August 24 and their scrutiny will be held between Aug 25 to 31.