President Arif Alvi has not yet signed a summary forwarded by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs seeking the convening of a National Assembly session over the non-allocation of some reserved seats, sources said on Sunday.
The president has maintained that the lower house of parliament is still incomplete due to the non-allocation of some reserved seats, they added.
While the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has allocated reserved seats to political parties, it has not awarded reserved quota to the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed independent candidates joined their ranks.
The ECP has maintained that the matter of SIC reserved seats is “pending before the commission”. The insiders also said the president had neither rejected nor accepted the summary and only communicated his verbal response on the matter. The interim government has maintained that the NA session will take place on February 29 even if the president did not sign the summary under Article 91 of the Constitution.
In a statement, PML-N senior leader Ishaq Dar said that the National Assembly speaker could summon the session on February 29 if the president did not do so under the Constitution.
The caretaker federal government has maintained that convening the National Assembly session within 21 days of the general elections is mandatory under Article 91 (2) of the Constitution, as per sources.
