LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-N is set to sweep all 11 Senate seats from Punjab because the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf sticks to its stance of not accepting a “bogus” provincial assembly as electoral college for the upper house polls.

The Senate elections are due to be held on March 3.

The PML-N enjoys more than two-thirds majority (312 MPAs) in a 371-member Punjab Assembly. The PTI, with just 30 seats stands second to N League, while both the PPP and PML-Q have eight members each in the house.

There are five independent MPAs, whereas the PML-Zia has three, the Pakistan National Muslim League (PNML), Jamat-i-Islami (JI) and Bahawalpur National Awami Party (BNAP) have one MPA each. Two seats are lying vacant.

In this equation, a candidate for general seat will have to bag at least 35 first priority votes to reach the Senate. (Each MPA or voter may mention seven priorities, equal to the number of general Senate seats from each province, in his/her ballot.)

If stand united, all the opposition parties (minus PTI) have 27 votes. Therefore, an opposition candidate, like Chaudhry Shujaat who has already started his efforts to woo the PPP for its support, will need at least eight turncoats among the ruling PML-N to ensure his win.

To clip PML-Q president’s wings and also to dent the PTI’s anti-government movement, the PML-N has offered, as a bait, Imran Khan’s party a Senate seat if it returns to the assembly.

PTI MPAs had handed over their resignations to the Punjab Assembly speaker on Aug 27 but these have not yet been accepted for want of “confirmation” through their individual appearance before the chair -- Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan -- “as per requirement of the law”.

Punjab’s former law minister, Rana Sanaullah Khan, confirms the reports that the PML-N may consider surrendering one Senate seat to the PTI provided it returns to the house.

The PTI’s parliamentary party which met here on Saturday, however, unanimously decided to follow the central leadership’s decision of boycotting the Senate polls from all provinces, except Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Punjab Assembly opposition leader Mian Mahmoodur Rashid categorically rejects any chance of PTI MPAs becoming part of the Senate election process.

PTI spokesman Naeem Mir says how can the party accept an assembly with “bogus” mandate to become electoral college for the Senate polls. The party will adhere to the decision of the central leadership, he adds.

Meanwhile, the PML-N is in a fix over whom to award Senate tickets after it received around 90 applications from Punjab only.

Interestingly, the applicants include the people who are not even formal members of the party like prime minister’s advisors Irfan Siddiqui and Tariq Fatimi, Yawar Irfan, Muhammad Zubair, etc.

Beside, many of the applicants are over 65 years of age.

Relatives of a number of the candidates are already in the assemblies or have been accommodated in government offices. Mehtab Abbasi, the KP governor and a member of the parliamentary board, was quoted as advising his colleagues in the board that they should prefer those, while awarding tickets for Senate, whose families were unrepresented in the assemblies.

There are also those who stood by the party through thick and thin but have not yet been accommodated in assemblies, party or in other offices.

Prime Minister and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has invited all the candidates to Islamabad on Monday to deliver them a short speech in a bid to mitigate heart burning in case of not being nominated for the Senate polls.

In 2012 polls, such speech was delivered by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

Published in Dawn February 9th , 2015

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