SUKKUR, May 13: Pakistan Peoples Party’s chief whip in the Senate, Islamuddin Shaikh, has accused MNA-elect and senior leader of the PPP Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah of colluding with the party’s rivals and disgruntled elements to keep his son out of the contest for NA-198.

The senator urged the party chairman to take immediate notice of Mr Shah’s anti-party activities spanning over a month and a half during which he and his close aides, including former special assistant to the chief minister Pehlaj Mal, worked behind the scenes to ensure the defeat of not only his son, Noman Shaikh, but also of a party candidate for PS-1, Haji Anwer Mahar.

As a result, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Saleem Bandhani had been unofficially declared winner by a margin of 2,500 votes, Mr Shaikh said at a press conference here on Sunday.

He said that he had taken up the matter with local election authorities because the result of 30 polling stations in PS-1 was yet to be announced. Mr Shah would be responsible if Mr Mahar was defeat under official results, he said.

Mr Shah had tried to settle a score with the party because the PPP Sindh leadership had not allowed his son-in-law Awais Qadir Shah to contest from Sukkur city and reluctantly permitted him to contest PS-4 which he had won, he said.

Mr Shah and his close friends — Shakeel Memon, Pehlaj Mal, Yousuf Jagirani and former MPA Dr Nasrullah Baloch — were found frantically working against the party candidates for PS-1 and NA-198, he said.

He said the former MPA Nasrullah Baloch who was a cousin of Mr Shah’s was pushing PPP voters to vote for the MQM candidate for PS-1 to help beat the PPP candidate Anwer Mahar because the party had denied him a ticket for the same seat over his poor performance during the past five years.

He said that he had informed the party leadership from time to time during the last month and a half about Mr Shah’s activities but no action was taken against him.

Mr Shaikh said that Mr Shah and his associates were even seen going door to door in different areas of Sukkur and Rohri to persuade party supporters not to vote for Noman Shaikh and Anwer Mahar.

He said that to prove his claims he had solid evidence which he would place before the party leadership soon.