Contesting polls from maximum three constituencies
Recommendation made to amend constitution
Staff Reporter
The Committee on Private Members Bills and Resolutions yesterday decided to make recommendations to the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs to bring amendment to the constitution with a provision allowing a person to contest polls from a maximum of three constituencies.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the committee, held at the parliament complex with its chairman Zillul Hakim in the chair, in the wake of the placement of a bill in parliament by independent lawmaker Rustom Ali Farazi.
In his bill, Farazi told the House that the Representation of the People Order (RPO) currently allows a person to contest from a maximum of three constituencies. However, the constitution allows a person to contest from more than one constituency, but there is no limit fixed.
This, according to Farazi, creates confusion and conflicting situation as the more than one constituency clause can be translated in different ways.
Taking cue from the bill, the committees made the recommendation to remove the contradictory provisions currently present in the constitution and RPO, according to the objective of the proposal readied for amending the constitution.
The committee chairman told reporters that though the earlier version of the RPO has been changed, the constitution has not been changed yet in terms of the provision in discussion.
As an initiative has been taken to amend the constitution for extending the tenure of the provision for women lawmakers from reserved seats to parliament, they have asked the law ministry to review the amendment proposal as well for Section 71, which deals with the number of constituency issue in discussion.
