ECP admits plea seeking Vawda’s disqualification over ‘false affidavit’

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) admitted on Saturday an application, seeking disqualification of Federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda for allegedly submitting a false affidavit before the election authority.

A petitioner had approached the ECP earlier this week in the wake of a news report that claimed that Vawda had dual nationality when he filed his nomination papers to contest the 2018 general elections.

The commission, while issuing notices to all respondents, fixed the case for hearing on February 3.

Faiq Shah, chairman of a little known Amn Tarraqi Party, has petitioned the ECP, requesting that the PTI leader be disqualified under Section 62-1(F) of the Constitution.

The petitioner said that the minister is no longer Sadiq and Ameen (truthful and trustworthy) as he filed a “false affidavit” with regard to his nationality.

Vawda won the National Assembly seat from Karachi’s NA-249 constituency in the 2018 polls against PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and was later included in the cabinet of Prime Minister Imran Khan as a federal minister.

However, the news report from last week claimed that the PTI leader was a US national at the time of filing his nomination papers – on June 11, 2018 – and applied for renunciation of his US nationality a week after – on June 18 – after the ECP accepted his nomination papers.

Pakistan’s law prohibits a dual national from contesting election unless he gives up his secondary nationality. The apex court has already disqualified two lawmakers, Haroon Akhtar and Saadia Abbasi, for holding dual nationalities at the time of filing papers to the ECP.

Sources privy to the development had earlier told the private channel that the minister had a US passport No 530572047 when he filed his nomination papers and a petition would soon be filed against him to the ECP or the Supreme Court under Section 62-1 (C) of the Constitution.