February 7, 2006	Tuesday	Muharram 8, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 6: The parliamentary board of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) will take a final decision about the allotment of tickets for the Senate elections, the party’s president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said here on Monday.

The announcement was made by Chaudhry Shujaat during a meeting with a delegation of PML leaders and workers. The party’s secretary general Mushahid Hussain Syed attended the meeting.

The delegation was led by the party’s additional secretary general Iqbal Dar and included the outgoing senator and Minister of State Dr Shahzad Wasim, Dr Amjad, Imtiaz Ranjha and Faqir Bokhari.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Dar said the Leaguers strongly protested against the release of a list which included names of some non-Leaguers, including Ahmed Saeed.

Chaudhry Shujaat told them that the list was not final and assured them that workers’ views would not be ignored. He also made it clear that the parliamentary board would take a final decision on the matter.

Chaudhry Shujaat told the Leaguers that a parliamentary board meeting would be convened within two or three days and a final decision would be taken by “majority consensus”. He assured them that the decisions reported by the media were not final and were subject to review by the parliamentary board.

Mr Dar said that a large number of PML workers from Islamabad and elsewhere had protested against the practice of taking decisions without taking the party’s cadre into confidence.

PML leaders were asked to pay heed to party workers’ objections to the inclusion in the list of people, who neither had any link with the party nor had done anything for it.

Nasrullah Dareshak, the party’s chief whip, is reported to have launched a campaign against giving a party ticket to a relative of Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari.

Mr Dareshak, according to sources, began contacting like-minded lawmakers in the National Assembly on Monday and informed them about alleged attempts to weaken the Dareshaks in Dera Ghazi Khan.