ECP officials summoned for KP election date.

PESHAWAR -- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Haji Ghulam Ali Monday summoned officials from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to initiate an "active and meaningful consultative process" regarding the date for the elections in the province - following Supreme Court's verdict on polls.

The governor, in a letter written to the ECP, has summoned the officials on March 6 or March 7. The letter has been written in response to a letter sent by the commission for the announcement of the election date.

Last week, the Supreme Court, in a 3-2 verdict, ruled that elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab - both of which have been under caretaker governments since the provincial assemblies were dissolved in January - should be held within 90 days.

The assemblies in the two provinces were controlled by disposed prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). In January, Khan, in a bid to force early elections, asked the provincial governors to dissolve the two assemblies.

On February 21, President Arif Alvi, who is from the PTI, unilaterally announced April 9 as the election date in the two provinces, creating a constitutional crisis, with experts wondering if he had the right to do so.

The top court took a suo moto notice of the president's announcement to determine which government institution had the constitutional responsibility of deciding the poll dates.

In the written verdict, the apex court held that in...