By-polls on 16 vacant seats in NA, Senate, Punjab PA: uncertainty deepens

ISLAMABAD: With the recent by-election on a Senate general seat, the number of vacant seats in the three legislative houses has reduced to 16, but the conduct of by-elections on these seats is still marked with uncertainty.

Nine seats of the National Assembly, six seats of the Punjab Assembly, and a seat in the Senate remain vacant, which were previously held by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) members. By-elections were earlier announced but later postponed due to floods and some legal reasons. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is yet to announce a date for these polls.

NA-66 Wazirabad, NA-129 Lahore, and PP-87 Mianwali are three of the nine seats where by-elections were scheduled to be held on September 18. However, the ECP recently postponed the by-elections citing “unprecedented floods.”

The by-polls on the remaining six seats, NA-96 Faisalabad, NA-104 Faisalabad, NA-143 Sahiwal, PP-73 Sargodha, PP-98 Faisalabad, and PP-203 Sahiwal, postponed due to floods, were scheduled for October 5.

Moreover, the by-elections on five seats have been postponed due to stay orders issued by the respective courts.

These seats are: one general Senate seat from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and four seats inthe National Assembly are NA-1 Chitral, NA-18 Haripur, NA-175 Muzaffargarh, and NA-185 Dera Ghazi Khan.

The by-election schedule for two PA seats, PP-115 Faisalabad and PP-116 Faisalabad, has not been announced yet.

By-election on only one seat has been held as per schedule, a Senate general seat from Punjab that fell vacant due to the disqualification of Ejaz Chaudhary from PTI by the ECP following an anti-terrorism court (ATC) verdict in a 9 May riots case.

Rana Sanaullah from Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) won this election held on Tuesday.

Apart from that, PTI lawmakers; Abdul Latif (NA-1 Chitral), Omar Ayub Khan (NA-18 Haripur), Ahmed Chattha (NA-66 Wazirabad), Rai Haider Ali (NA-96 Faisalabad), Sahibzada Hamid Raza (NA-104 Faisalabad), Rai Hassan Nawaz (NA-143 Sahiwal), JamshaidDasti (NA-175 Muzaffargarh), Zartaj Gul (NA-185 Dera Ghazi Khan), Ansar Iqbal (PP-73 Sargodha), Ahmad Khan (PP-87 Mianwali), Junaid Afzal Sahi (PP-98 Faisalabad), Shahid Javed (PP-115) Faisalabad, Muhammad Ismael (PP-116 Faisalabad), Rai Murtaza Iqbal (PP-203 Sahiwal) and ShibliFaraz (Senate Khyber Pakhtunkhwa seat) were disqualified by the ECP following their convictions by the courts in previous weeks.

Except Dasti, the other 14 lawmakers were disqualified by the ECP keeping in view their convictions by the ATCs.

Dasti was disqualified by the electoral body on the charges of having fake educational credentials.

Of the vacant seats, NA-129 Lahore is the only seat that fell vacant due to a lawmaker’s death, and not due to a legislator’s disqualification, after PTI’s Mian Azhar passed away following a protracted illness this July.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025