MUZAFFARABAD: The AJK`s Chief Election Commissioner on Friday disallowed the nomination of an MQM candidate for the reserved seats for women on technical grounds besides rejecting objections against the candidature of a PML-N nominee for the women`s seat and a PPAJK`s candidate for the seat of a religious scholar.

According to Mohammad Younus Mughal, secretary Election Commission, Ms Nazmeen Kausar of the MQM had not only submitted her nomination paper one hour after the deadline of 2 pm on Thursday but it carried such names as proposer and seconder who had not been notified by the EC as MLAs-elect by that time.

Mr Mughal was referring to the MQM`s Tahir Khokar and Salim Butt who were notified as MLAs-elect at about 8 pm on Thursday.

He said Ms Kausar was supposed to annex the receipt of submission of asset details in the EC along with her nomination paper but instead she had attached asset details in what was violation of the laid down procedure.

The CEC also rejected an appeal against the eligibility of PML-N`s candidate Dr Fauzia Ashraf, declaring that her marriage to a non-state subject did not divest her of Kashmir citizenship. In all, four PML-N ladies have submitted their nominations but the party, which can easily clinch one out of five special seats reserved for women, has allotted its ticket to Ms Ashraf, who is wife of Dr Tahir Ali Javed, head of the “Unification Group” in the Punjab Assembly.

Ms Ashraf`s nomination was reported to have caused anger among some local aspirants from the PML-N but they had no option but to resign themselves to the decision of Sharif brothers who had taken it in view of their political requirements in the Punjab.

The PML-N candidate for the seat of religious scholar, Sahibzada Salim Chishti had challenged the eligibility of Pir Attiqur Rehman Faizpuri of the PPAJK on the grounds of his, what he claimed, fake academic (madrassah) certificates but the objections were turned down by the CEC.

Source: Dawn

Date:7/23/2011