LAHORE, Oct 8: Neither the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif nor four of his seven cabinet members have furnished their declarations with regard to their nationality so far, in contravention of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) orders which required such submissions before or on Oct 9 (today).
The Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, Raja Riaz, has also yet to file the document.
The ECP, on a Supreme Court direction, had asked all members of Senate, National Assembly and the provincial house on Sept 24 to submit declarations on oath that they were not disqualified under Article 62 (1) (c) of the Constitution. (The sub-article of the basic law bars public representatives from holding dual nationality.)
A reminder was sent by the ECP on Oct 2 asking the lawmakers to furnish their declarations on or before Oct 9 as secretaries of Senate and the National Assembly refused to comply with the earlier directions.
The parliamentarians are required to sign the declarations on oath in the presence of the secretary of the relevant house who is bound to dispatch the same to the ECP.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and four provincial ministers -- Iqbal Chunnar, Ahmed Ali Aulakh, Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman and Ehsanuddin Qureshi --- are yet to file their declarations.
So far only 150 out of 371 Punjab Assembly members have complied with the ECP direction.
A PML-N spokesman said Mr Shahbaz Sharif is presently abroad and would submit the document on his return.
Interestingly, Opposition Leader Raja Riaz, who had recently alleged that Shahbaz had dual nationality and that the Supreme Court should take suo motu notice of it, is himself among those who had not submitted the declaration. His deputy MPA Shaukat Basra is also yet to file the document.
Similarly, MPA Moonis Elahi, the son of former chief minister and now Deputy Prime Minister Pervaiz Elahi, is yet to comply with the ECP direction.
The apex court had disqualified five Punjab Assembly members—Ashraf Chauhan, Muhammad Akhlaq, Waseem Qadir, Nadeem Khadim and Amna Buttar —in its landmark judgment against dual nationality-holding lawmakers on Sept 20. Two other members -- Dr Tahir Ali Javed and Jamil Ashraf -- resigned to avoid disqualification.
The ECP is holding by-polls on Nov 11 for two National Assembly and four Punjab Assembly general seats. A women quota seat also stood vacant after the disqualifications.
The process of filing nomination papers for the by-polls started on Monday and will continue on Tuesday (today).
The by-polls in Punjab will be held in NA-162 (Sahiwal), NA-107 (Gujrat), PP-144 (Lahore), PP-26 (Jhelum) and PP-122 (Sialkot) constituencies.
The PPP has fielded Zahid Zulfiqar, PML-N Muhammad Hussain Kamboh, while Chaudhry Akhtar Ali, Ghazali Saleem Butt and Ijaz Mahmood have also filed their nominations for PP-144.
