The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday directed the candidates elected to multiple national or provincial assembly seats in July 25 polls to resign from the seats except the one they wish to retain. A notification issued by the ECP says that as per Article 223 (3) of the Constitution, all candidates elected on multiple seats in the national or provincial assemblies will have to tender their resignations before they take the oath of membership for the assemblies.
The ECP said that the members can address their respective resignations to chief election commissioner and shall be delivered either in person or through authorized agent to the ECP Secretariat, Islamabad, or in the offices of provincial election commissioners Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
In the polls, numerous candidates of different parties contested election from more than one seats of national and provincial assemblies and some of them returned too. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman and prime minister-in-waiting won five National Assembly seats - one each from Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Mianwali and Bannu.
PTI leaders Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Tahir Sadiq and Pervez Khattak and others also stood victorious in the election on more than one seats, so they will now relinquish all the seats except one they want to retain. On the vacant seats, the ECP will hold by-elections in second week of October.