ECP rejects Dar’s Senate nomination

LAHORE: Returning Officer (RO) Sharifullah for the Senate polls from Punjab on Monday rejected the nomination papers of former finance minister Ishaq Dar.

The RO has rejected the nomination as Dar had submitted his nomination papers for two different categories with a single bank account. It is mandatory to open an exclusive bank account for each submission of nomination papers if a candidate files his nominations in different categories. However, Dar opened a single bank account in the Gulberg branch of a private bank, and submitted his nomination papers for both general and technocrat seats.

According sources in the ECP, the other reason was the unattested copies of CNIC attached with the nomination papers. They say the fake signatures didn’t cause rejection as the documents were dispatched through Pakistan’s embassy which takes responsibility for authenticity of signatures when documents are sent for some official purpose.

Earlier, the counsel for PTI sought rejection of Dar’s nominations for not submitting an authentic declaration of his assets. Meanwhile, the nomination papers of Hafiz Abdul Karim – PML-N’s other technocrat seats – were also rejected by the RO.

A total five nominations – Dar, Usman Zai, Sarfraz Qamar, Hafiz Abul Karim and Bilal Butt – were rejected on the last day of scrutiny including However, the ECP accepted the nomination papers Hina Rabbani Khar, Nuzhat Sadiq, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Saadia Abbasi and Andleeb Abbas for the women seats.

For the general seats, the nominations of Malik Shakeel Aiwan, Shaheen Khalid Butt, Irfan Ahmad Daha, Rana Mehmood-ul-Hassan, Hamid Miraj, Rao Anees-ur-Rehman, Shahzad Ali Khan, Muhammad Bilal Butt, Sarfraz Qureshi, Asif Kirmani, Haroon Khan, Samiullah Chaudhary, Maqbool Ahmad, Musadik Malik, Chaudhry Sarwar, Zubair Gull and Farooq Khan were accepted.

The nominations of Muhammad Nawazish Ali Pirzada, Naseer Ahmad Bhutta, and Malik Muhammad Asif Javaid’s have been accepted for the two seats reserved for technocrats. In case of the one seat for non-Muslims, nominations of Kamran Michael, William Michael and Victor Azariah have been accepted by the RO.

The last date for filling of appeals against acceptance or rejection of nominations is Wednesday (February 15), which would be disposed of by Friday (February 17) with the revised list to be published the next day (February 18). The last date for withdrawal of candidature is February 19, while the polling would be held on March 3.