PPP receives 493 applications for Senate elections
11 January, 2012
LAHORE: For the upcoming Senate elections on 54 seats in March, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has received 493 applications from its leaders on Tuesday, our sources has learnt. On the last day to submit the applications at the party's central secretariat in Islamabad and Bilawal House in Karachi, around 493 candidates showed their will to contest the Senate elections. They also paid Rs 30,000 along with their documents to the party, sources in the PPP said. They said the party's central secretariat received 316 and Bilawal House received 177 applications for the Senate seats. The sources said the PPP and its allied party, the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid (PML-Q) were committed to contesting Senate elections jointly. The leaderships of the two parties had reached a consensus on a technocrat seat from Islamabad in form of Mushahid Hussain Syed. The sources said that the PML-Q was earlier demanding three seats, but they later reached a consensus on one seat with the coalition partner in the central government. The PML-Q sources confirmed that their party had called applications to its candidates from January 15 to January 30. Half of the total members of the Senate would be retired on March 11 and the electoral college will elect 54 new senators, including four reserved seats for minorities. The minority representatives for the upper house would be taken from all four provinces. The PPP has 27 seats in Senate and there are chances of gaining more 21 to 25 seats in upcoming elections after bargaining with other ally parties in parliament. The PPP sources informed that many prominent leaders of the party including Raza Rabbani, Farhat Ullah Babar, Dr Babar Awan, Dr Fakharuddin Chaudhry, Naveed Chaudhry, Saif Magsi, Sardar Khurram Khosa, Shabina Riaz Sheikh and Nawabzada Ghazanfar Gull had submitted their applications to the party secretariat. Sources said the PPP's executive council would finalise its candidates after considering their affiliation, devotion and chances of winning the contest. The sources also said that all the applications were submitted in the name of PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari. The 50 senators who will retire on March 11, 2012, after completion of their constitutional tenure of six years are: PML-Q's Tariq Azim Khan, Wasim Sajjad, Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi, Saeed Ahmed Hashmi, Jan Muhammad Khan Jamali, Rehana Yahya Baloch, Mir Mohabat Khan Marri, Fauzia Fakhar-uz-Zaman, Saleem Saifullah Khan, Ammar Ahmed Khan, Semeen Siddiqui, Sardar Muhammad Jamal Khan Leghari, Syed Javed Ali Shah, Lt Gen (R) Javed Ashraf, Mohammad Ali Durrani, Naeem Hussain Chattha, Gulshan Saeed, Nilofar Bakhtiar, SM Zafar and Haroon Khan while the PPP's Dr Zaheer-ud-din Babar Awan, Mian Raza Rabbani, Muhammad Ghufran Khan, Dr Javaid Laghari, Ratna Bhagwandas Chawla, Dr Safdar Ali Abbasi are also going to complete their tenure. PML-N's Mohammad Ishaq Dar, JUI-F's Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro, MQM's Ahmed Ali, Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada and MMA's Moulana Gul Naseeb Khan, Rahmatullah Kakar, advocate, Sabina Rauf, Afia Zia, Prof Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, Muhammad Talha Mahmood, Prof. Khurshid Ahmed, Muhammad Azam Khan Swati (already resigned) are also include in the list of outgoing senators. PKMAP's Abdur Rahim Khan Mandokhail, BNP-A's Mir Israrullah Khan, JWP's Shahid Hassan Bugti, PML-F's Syed Sajid Hussain Zaidi, Muhammad Ismail and ANP's Ilyas Ahmed Bilour are also on the list while five independent senators including four FATA members Hafiz Rashid Ahmad, Abdul Raziq, Abdur Rashid, Maulana Muhammad Saleh Shah, and Dr Abdul Malik are also included in the same list. End.
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