Islamabad: The National Assembly has approved the Election Act Amendment Bill 2024, under which an independent candidate cannot join any other political party after a specified period.
A meeting of the National Assembly was held under the chairmanship of Speaker Ayaz Sadiq in which Muslim League (N) member National Assembly Bilal Kayani presented the bill for the second amendment to the Election Act.
The members of the Sunni Unity Council submitted amendments to the proposed bill, but the government members rejected all the amendments by majority vote.
Ali Muhammad Khan said that the judiciary has been attacked through the Election Act, Parliament was used to attack the Supreme Court through this law, Tehreek-e-Insaf got the right from the Supreme Court’s decision, how after the Supreme Court’s decision. can deprive us of this right.
The members supported by Sunni Ittehad Council and PTI raised loud slogans while protesting in the House opposing the Election Amendment Bill.
They shouted slogans against the attack on the judiciary. Due to the noise, the house became a fish market.
The National Assembly passed the Election Act Amendment Bill 2024 by majority vote. This law will be implemented from 2017.
Under the new law, independent candidates cannot exercise their right to join any political party after the specified period specified in the constitution and law.
The Constitution and Elections Act 2017 did not provide the facility for independent candidates to rejoin any political party. The party not submitting the list of reserved seats within the proposed period will not be eligible for reserved seats.
The bill states that a candidate who has not submitted an affidavit of party affiliation before the Returning Officer will be considered independent. A candidate who shows party affiliation after the election will not be considered as a candidate of any political party and the Second Election Amendment Bill will come into effect from 2017.
