KARACHI: Saifullah Abro of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Rauf Siddiqui of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Wednesday approached the Sindh High Court (SHC) against the rejection of their nomination papers for the Senate elections.
On Monday, an election tribunal of the SHC disqualified Abro for contesting the March 3 election, declaring that he did not meet the criteria to contest the Senate election on a technocrat seat that required minimum 16 years of education and 20 years of experience.
Earlier on February 18, Siddiqui’s papers were rejected on similar grounds as well.
In their respective petitions, the Senate hopefuls adopted the stance that the tribunal ignored the facts of the case, seeking permission to contest the elections.
During the proceedings, the counsels for Abro and Siddiqui insisted that the politicians possessed the required criteria and therefore be granted permission to run for the House.
The PTI has faced several challenges to its proposed candidates for the Senate elections. Last week, disgruntled PTI leaders from rural Sindh had approached Governor Imran Ismail, also a PTI stalwart, to express their reservations.
In a letter, the PTI officials had said they were “extremely disappointed with the entire process” of the selection of candidates for the polls and demanded the party’s high command cancel the nomination of Abro and Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda and award tickets to “party loyalists”.
Seperately, eight appeals were filed against the decisions of the returning officers over acceptance and rejection of the Senate hopefuls from Sindh.
Two appeals were filed against Abro, while an appeal was filed against the acceptance of Vawda’s nomination papers on a general seat.
