ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz has claimed that the party senators are being called and asked not to vote for the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) candidate in the Senate chairman election.
In a tweet on Thursday, she claimed that the senators also have “recorded the evidence”.
“Our senators are being called and asked not to vote for PDM candidate,” Maryam said in a Twitter post this afternoon. However, the PML-N VP did not specify who was holding such conversations with the party’s members.
Separately, former prime minister and PML-N Senior Vice President Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, while addressing a press conference along with other party leaders in Islamabad, said: “I want to believe DG ISPR [when he says the army has nothing to do with politics] but our senators have been complaining that they are receiving phone calls.”
Other PML-N leaders present on the occasion were party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb, and Senator Hafiz Abdul Kareem.
“Once again, an attempt is being made today to make the election of the Senate chairman controversial,” he said. “There is still time to hold the Senate chairman election tomorrow in accordance with the Constitution.”
“It is unfortunate that people whose party did not have any representation in that province were elected in the Senate elections 2018 and a person whose party di not even exist was made the Senate chairman,” Abbasi said.
Speaking on the occasion, PML-N Senator Hafiz Abdul Kareem corroborated Maryam’s statements and claimed that he received multiple calls on WhatsApp from “unknown callers”.
“I got the first call on March 6, the second on March 7 and the third one on March 9… I picked up the last one. The person who was calling requested that I should not vote for Yousaf Raza Gillani [the PDM’s joint candidate for the Senate chairman post] and instead vote for their candidate,” he said.
“I spoke on the last call I received wherein I was told to support the government’s candidate and not Gillani,” he said.
The election for Senate chairman and deputy chairman will be held on March 12.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has nominated Sadiq Sanjrani, the current chairman, as their candidate, while the opposition parties have expressed their support for former prime minister Gillani.
PDM’s candidate for deputy chairman is Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, while PTI has named Senator Mirza Muhammad Afridi for the post.
