Pak Poll Body Rejects Over 3,000 Nominations For Upcoming Elections

 The Pakistan Election Commission (ECP) rejected the nomination papers of 3,240 candidates aspiring to contest elections at national and provincial levels to be held on February 8, 2024, ARY News reported on Monday.

It reported that the official data released by the Pakistan electoral body revealed that 1024 candidates were denied eligibility to contest national assembly elections and 2,216 individuals, failed to secure approval for the provincial assembly race.

A total of 25,951 nominations were filed by the candidates from which the Returning Officers (ROs) accepted 22,711 candidates. For the National Assembly, 6,449 candidates received approval and 1024 faced rejection.

The ROs accepted 16,262 nominations for various provincial assembly seats. Punjab witnessed the highest number of rejections (521) for National Assembly nominations, followed by Sindh (166), Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (152), Balochistan (92), and Islamabad Capital Territory (93).

For provincial assembly seats, the ROs rejected the nomination papers of 943 candidates in Punjab; 520 in Sindh; 386 in Balochistan and 367 in the K-P, for a total of 2,216. The total number of people who filed nomination papers to contest provincial assembly elections was 18,478.

Following the completion of two phases of the election process, in the third phase, appeals against the acceptance or rejection of nomination papers can be submitted by Wednesday and decisions on these appeals will be made by the 10th of this month, ARY News reported.

The preliminary list of candidates will be displayed on the 11th and candidates can withdraw their nomination papers by the 12th of this month.

The electoral symbols will be allotted on the 13th of this month, while polling for the general elections will be held on the 8th of next month.

Moreover, ECP rejected the nomination papers for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khanb, dealing a major blow to the former Prime Minister ahead of the upcoming elections slated for February 8, 2024, The News International reported on Saturday.

Despite being disqualified from contesting the upcoming general elections in Pakistan, jailed ex-PM Imran Khan submitted his nomination papers from his home constituency in Mianwali on Friday, as reported by Geo News.

Meanwhile, in a development that has led to heavy criticism for Islamabad, the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML), a political entity of Hafiz Saeed, has fielded candidates for each and every national and provincial assembly constituency across Pakistan for the upcoming general elections slated to be held on February 8, 2024.

Hafiz Saeed's son Talha Saeed is also going to contest the polls from the National Assembly's constituency NA-127, Lahore, while PMML's central president Khalid Masood Sindhu is taking part from NA-130, against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo and former PM Nawaz Sharif.

Saeed, who has been in jail since July 17, 2019, for other charges, was sentenced in April 2022 by a special anti-terrorism court in Lahore, Pakistan, to a jail term of 33 years for "financing terrorism."

Despite being designated a terrorist by the UN and EU in the 2000s, Saeed was neither charged nor extradited over nearly two decades.

Saeed was designated as a terrorist by the United Nations Security Council in December 2008.

Meanwhile, India has also conveyed a request to the Pakistani government regarding the extradition of 26/11 attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed to India for facing trial in a particular case.MEA said that New Delhi has conveyed the request with all relevant supporting documents.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)