The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Sunday called of by-elections on 37 National Assembly (NA) seats, suspending its election programmes issued for by-polls on the respective seats. As per the ECP’s notifications, the commission has called off by-polls on 24 NA seats from K-P, three from Islamabad, one from Balochistan and nine from Sindh. The electoral body said the decision was taken following orders by Sindh, Islamabad, Peshawar and Balochistan high courts. The by-polls were scheduled to take place on March 16 and 19 after NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf accepted the resignations of the PTI lawmakers. The constituencies where by-elections were scheduled included: NA-04 Swat, NA-17 Haripur, NA-18 Swabi, NA-25 and NA-26 Nowshera, NA-32 Kohat, NA-38 Dera Ismail Khan, NA-43 Khyber, NA-52, 53, and NA-54 Islamabad, NA-57, 59, 60, 62 and NA-63 Rawalpindi, NA-67 Jhelum, NA-97 Bhakkar, NA-126 and NA-130 Lahore, NA-155 and NA-156 Multan, NA-191 Dera Ghazi Khan, NA-241, 242. 243, 244, 247, 250, 252, 254, and NA-256 Karachi and NA-265 Quetta. Earlier this year, the NA speaker accepted the resignations of 34 lawmakers belonging to the PTI and one member of the AML, in a bid to help Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif secure the confidence vote recently announced by the party’s chief Imran Khan. A total of 123 PTI MNAs had resigned en masse on April 11 last year – two days after their party chairman was ousted as the prime minister through a no-confidence motion. After dragging feet over the process for eight months, the NA speaker accepted the resignations of 34 PTI MNAs on January 17 and 35 MNAs on January 20, including Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid. On January 25, the ECP de-notified 43 more PTI lawmakers after Ashraf accepted their resignations. Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja has also called a meeting of the electoral body on March 13 to discuss the PTI’s petitions against the illegal imposition of Section 144 and the ban on the party’s rallies in Lahore. Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja convened a meeting of the ECP today (Monday) to discuss the PTI’s petitions against the “illegal imposition” of Section 144 and ban on the party’s rallies in Lahore. Taking to Twitter, the electoral watchdog said the meeting will be held at 10:30am. Ahead of its election rally in Lahore, the PTI approached the ECP on Sunday against the “illegal imposition of Section 144 in Lahore” by the caretaker Punjab government. President of Central Punjab of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Dr Yasmin Rashid on Sunday wrote to the CEC on the issue of stopping the PTI rally. It has been stated in the letter that the Election Commission has issued the election schedule in Punjab, following which PTI announced a rally and the caretaker government imposed Section 144 [to stop the rally]. It was further mentioned that the rally was also brutally manhandled by the police earlier, due to which one of their activist was martyred. In the letter, the electoral watchdog has been asked to take notice of the caretaker government’s role and declare the implementation of Section 144 illegal.