Islamabad:

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf allocated 53 seats to women in the February 8 elections, the most among Pakistan’s major political parties, media reported on Friday.

The party, which was stripped of its electoral symbol – the cricket bat – by Pakistan’s Supreme Court in January, has allotted tickets to 53 women candidates, 28 of whom are contesting in the National Assembly constituency elections and 25 who are contesting. Provincial seats.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, the party’s candidates will contest the elections as independents with a different electoral symbol.

According to Geo News, the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party will participate in the election for the first time and the party has issued tickets to 7 women, accounting for 7.2% of the total number of candidates of the party.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement has allotted tickets to 13 women, constituting 6.7 per cent of its total candidates.

However, the other major parties did not give even 5% of the vote to women. In the February 8 elections, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) gave votes to 35 women, 11 for National Assembly seats and 24 for provincial seats, accounting for just 4.5 of its total 779 candidates %.

The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz party led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has issued ballot papers to only 28 women, 12 for National Assembly seats and 15 for provincial seats, out of only 668 candidates fielded by the party 4.2% of people.

The far-right Islamic extremist party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf allocated only 11 votes to women, the smallest number of women, accounting for just 1.5% of its candidates.

However, as many as 513 women, a majority of 203, are among the 11,165 independents contesting for the Punjab Assembly seat.

Although women make up about 49% of Pakistan’s population, according to the 2017 Census, only 839 women are running in the February 8 elections out of 17,000 candidates, a proportion of only 4.7%.

Pakistan’s electoral laws mandate political parties to allocate 5% of votes to women.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)