KARACHI, Feb 6: Prospective PPP candidates for the upcoming Senate elections are in a fix as the party has not yet formed a parliamentary board for inviting applications for a ticket. Nominations are supposed to be submitted with the Election Commission of Pakistan between Feb 11 and 13.

There is a confusion among PPP cadre over who would decide about the party tickets and when. It is not yet also clear that who among the retiring senators would repeat and for which category.

The PPP is faced with a serious crisis of leadership in the upper house of the parliament because most of its front liners have retired, leader of the opposition Mian Raza Rabbani being among them.

In this hour of crisis, insiders said, the party leadership was also being pressed for not ignoring those who had remained firm on PPP’s basic philosophy and had even suffered heavily on account of that.

The sources said that perhaps the names of aspirants were being short-listed by PPP chairperson Ms Benazir Bhutto herself for which views of party legislators in various assemblies were being solicited.

However, in view of the desertion controversy in the last elections, many candidates are not feeling comfortable with the modality of deciding the tickets. PPP Secretary-General Jehangir Badar was not available to comment on the situation.