PESHAWAR, March 7: Senator-elect Salim Saifullah on Tuesday rejected charges of horse-trading in the Senate elections and said that the word ‘horse’ should not be used for parliamentarians.

Addressing a press conference at his residence, Mr Saifullah said that MPAs had voted against the alliance’s candidates because the MMA government had failed to deliver.

“My election as senator is not the result of horse-trading,” Mr Saifullah said, adding that it was inappropriate to dub honourable members of the assembly as horses.

When he was reminded that he himself had used similar expressions in the past against members of the assembly who had allegedly sold their votes, Mr Saifullah said: “I think we should bury the wrongdoings of the past and think of the future.”

When asked why had the MMA MPAs voted for him and Amar Khan, another PML nominee, and PPP (Sherpao group) candidate Haji Ghufran, against the candidates of the religious alliance, Mr Saifullah said he had a record of having struggled to safeguard the rights of the province, adding that it was for this reason that the MPAs had reposed confidence in him.

Referring to reports suggesting that the candidates of the PML and the PPP (Sherpao) had gained victory over candidates of the MMA, the ANP and the PPP by purchasing votes, the PML leader said that allegations of horse-trading were baseless, adding that the MMA and its allies in the province could not substantiate allegations.

Commenting on Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani’s proposal to hold senate elections through a show of hands, he said it was unfortunate that the chief executive of a province did not know the importance of secret ballot, adding that it was customary to use secret ballot to elect members of the upper house.

Mr Saifullah said that the PML nominee for the technocrat seat, Justice (retd) Azam Khan, had a chance of wining the election as the party had filed an application with the election commission to contest the validity of two of his votes that had been rejected.

He expressed the resolve to fight a legal battle against his political rival, Malik Imran, a PML (N) MPA from Lakki Marwat, who and the Saifullah brothers had a scuffle in the assembly during the senate election on Monday.

When asked why did he and his brother Humayun Saifullah, nazim of district Lakki Marwat, not allow Malik Imran to cast his vote when he had claimed that he had been restored by the Supreme Court, Mr Saifullah said Malik Imran did not produce any court orders to substantiate his claim. Besides, he said, he had arrived late.

Mr Saifullah said that he still believed that Malik Imran’s BA degree was fake and that he had been previously disqualified by the Peshawar High Court. “How could he poll his vote on the basis of a fake degree?”

Former federal minister Anwer Saifullah and Humayun Saifullah did not speak at the press briefing. However, when journalists wanted to know the reasons for the scuffle, Mr Humayun Saifullah said it was the chief minister’s private secretary and Malik Imran who had initiated the fight with them.