ECP member contracts corona

ISLAMABAD: A senior member of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Mrs Justice Irshad Qaiser (R) participation has become difficult in tomorrow’s hearing of petition filed by Miftah Ismail of the PML-N against the counting of votes in bye-polls of NA-249 Karachi, held Thursday last. The ECP member has contracted coronavirus last month and since then she is in quarantine. Her husband Qaiser Ali died of coronavirus in third week of last month and since then she hasn’t turned up at the Commission. Highly-placed sources of the ECP told The News here Sunday that despite her absence, the Commission with its chairman Raja Sikandar Sultan in chair and three other members of the Commission will hear the petition tomorrow (Tuesday) since the required quorum for the Commission meeting would be complete with the presence of its four members including the chairman. The returning officer for the bye-election who declared PPP candidate Qadir Khan Mandokhail winner has also been summoned by the Commission for the hearing. The sources said Miftah Ismail is reaching Islamabad today (Monday) along with documents as evidence against the votes counting, that declared him runner-up in the polls contest. Interestingly, his arch-rival Qadir Mandokhail of the PPP is travelling from Karachi to Islamabad by the same flight today. Miftah has engaged a prominent lawyer Salman Akram Raja to plead his case before the ECP. Raja was also counsel of PML-N MNA Nosheen Iftikhar, who had to face similar circumstances in her contest in elections in February this year.