ECP to select caretaker CM for Punjab today.

ISLAMABAD -- After a bi-partisan parliamentary committee formed by the Punjab Assembly speaker failed to reach a consensus in the stipulated time, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will meet in the evening to pick the caretaker chief minister for Punjab.

Sources told Dawn that the meeting chaired by ECP chief Sikandar Sultan Raja will be preceded by informal deliberations between the CEC and members of the commission to pave way for a consensus decision regarding the matter.

The election watchdog has only Sunday to decide on the nominee for the caretaker CM slot as the two-day time given to the commission under Article 224-A of the Constitution will be expiring today. A senior official of the ECP explained that the commission could not meet a day earlier as it officially received the names of four nominees from PA Speaker Sibtain Khan on Saturday.

The ECP will surely meet its constitutional obligation and announce the name for the Punjab caretaker chief minister today,' an ECP official told Dawn.

It was expected that the matter would land in the ECP since PML-Q leader and ally of PTI, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, had already announced to approach a court of law if any 'controversial person' was picked by the Election Commission from the list of nominees shared with it by the parliamentary committee.

Parvez Elahi has proposed the...