- Electoral 89 candidates file nomination papers for 11 vacant Senate seats
- Hamid Khan, Zulfi Bukhari, Sanam Javed, and Dr Yasmin Rashid vying from Punjab
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Saturday finalized a list of the party candidates from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Punjab for the upcoming Senate elections while the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced the schedule for the elections to 11 vacant Senate seats from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on April 2.
According to the ECP, the 11 Senate seats from KP comprise seven general, two technocrat and two women seats.
The officials said that a total of 89 candidates have collected nomination papers from the provincial election commission to contest in the upcoming senate elections. Among these, 67 candidates are competing for the seven general seats, 14 for the two women seats, and 8 for the two technocrat seats.
Prominent lawmakers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) such as Faisal Javed and Azam Swati, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) Talha Mehmood, and Dilawar Mohmand have already submitted their nomination papers in connection with the Senate elections.
The electoral process will see 143 members of the provincial assembly exercising their voting rights on the designated date.
The process of receiving nomination papers has started at the Senate secretariat in Islamabad and preliminary list of the candidates will be released on March 17.
It is pertinent to mention that the four senators of erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) will be the last members who were elected on the quota for region. After the 25th Amendment to the Constitution that merged them with K-P, the tribal districts with will not have separate seats in the Senate.
Therefore, the Senate will now comprise 96 members, in which each province is represented equally with 23 seats, while four are for Islamabad.
On the other hand, PTI Founding Chairman Imran Khan approved the names of his party’s tickets for the Senate elections afterwards the party released the final list of candidates for the upper house polls.
Murad Saeed, Faisal Javed Khan, Mirza Afridi, Irfan Saleem and Khurram Zeeshan will be the party’s candidates for general seats from KP, while Azhar Mashwani would be the covering candidate of Murad Saeed.
Azam Swati and Irshad Hussain are the candidates of the party on technocrat seats, while Ayesha Bano and Rubina Naz will contest for women’s seat in the province.
Similarly in Punjab, Hamid Khan and Zulfi Bukhari are the party candidates for the general seats and Omer Sarfraz Cheema and Col (r) Ijaz Minhas would be the covering candidates.
Moreover, Sanam Javed will contest Senate elections as the party’s candidate for the women’s seat, while Dr Yasmin Rashid will be a candidate for the technocrat seat in the Senate elections from Punjab.
The electoral watchdog is set to hold the Senate election next month to fill the 48 seats fell vacant upon the expiration of the 6-year term of the incumbent senators last week.
As per the electoral body’s schedule for Senate polls, today (March 16) is the last date for the submission of nomination papers.
Earlier, senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser expressed doubts if the names of candidates has been finalised by the PTI’s founding chairman Imran Khan or not.
However, PTI later released the list of candidates “approved” by Khan, via the party’s official account on X, formerly Twitter.
PTI leader Mian Aslam Iqbal had earlier announced the party’s candidates for the Senate elections, but confusion emerged as Qaiser raised questions regarding the names of candidates.
“I have no clue if Imran Khan approved it or not. I don’t want to comment on it,” Qaiser made these comments while speaking during an interview with a private news channel on Friday.
