ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has summoned a Senate session on Aug 5 (Monday) to get the controversial Elections Act (Amendment) Bill passed by both houses of parliament.

Informed sources said the bill, which had already been cleared by the National Assembly’s relevant standing committee, would land in the Senate on Monday evening after being passed in the lower house the same day.

The move is aimed at preventing the re-emergence of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf as the single largest party in the National Assembly.

Sources said the bill would be rushed through the Senate either without being referred to its standing committee concerned or after allowing very short time to the committee to submit its report.

In a major blow to the ruling coalition led by the PML-N, the Supreme Court on July 12 declared PTI eligible for reserved seats for women and minorities.

The verdict was announced by a 13-member bench and was live-streamed on YouTube. A day earleir, the court had reserved its decision on the matter after closing the hearing on a set of appeals moved by the Sunni Ittehad Council against the denial of the reserved seats to it.

On July 30, a bill proposing am­­endments to the election law lan­ded in the NA. Moved by PML-N lawmaker Bilal Azhar Kayani, the bill suggests that a political party should not be allocated seats reserved for women and non-Muslim candidates if it fails to submit its list for the reserved seats within the prescribed time.