These reserved seats had been denied to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

As per a notification issued by the ECP, the National Assembly membership of 19 women and 3 minority members has been suspended. The women whose membership has been suspended from the National Assembly include Samina Khalid Gharki, Saira Tarar and Sobia Shahid.

In addition, the ECP has also suspended the membership of 24 women elected on reserved seats in Punjab Assembly, of 2 women and one minority member from Sindh Assembly and of 21 members from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

It should be noted that on May 6, 2024, the Supreme Court suspended the decision to allocate the reserved seats to ruling political parties after accepting petition filed by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

Thus, the ruling coalition lost dozens of reserved seats in the national and provincial assembly.

The Supreme Court had suspended the decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) of allocating the reserved seats of SIC to other parties on the grounds that the SIC had neither contested polls nor had submitted a nominees’ list for the reserved seats.

The women MPAs suspended include: Maqsoodan Bibi, Rubina Nazir, Salma Zahid, Kanwal Nauman, Zeba Ghafoor, Saeeda Samreen Taj, Sheharbano, Amna Parveen, Syed Sumera Ahmed, Uzma Butt, Afshan Hussain, Shagufta Faisal, Nasreen Riaz, Sajida Naveed, Farzana Abbas, Mariya Talal, Tasheen Fawad, Abida Bashir, Saeeda Muzaffar, Faiza Monima, Amera Khan, Samiya Ata, Rahat Afza and Rukhsana Shafiq. The minority members are Tariq Masih Gill, Waseem Anjum, and Basroji.

Earlier, the ECP had withheld the notifications on 23 reserved seats - 20 for women and three for minorities - because of the dispute on the allocation of the seats after the PTI-backed independents joined the SIC.

The ECP had allocated reserved seats to the parties in the NA in proportion to the general seats won by them in the Feb 8 elections.

The electoral watchdog had refused to allocate these seats to the SIC and issued notifications distributing these seats to the parties in the ruling coalition led by the PML-N. It had allocated 15 seats reserved for women to the PML-N, four to PPP and one to the JUI-F. It allocated one seat each reserved for the minorities to the PML-N, the PPP and the MQM-P.

After the illegal decision, the ECP had also issued notifications on the reserved seats for women and minorities in Punjab and the KP assemblies.