KARACHI: With three new faces, the Pakistan Peoples Party is vying for a total of seven seats from Sindh in the upcoming senate elections.

There are a total of 11 senate seats from Sindh — seven general and two each reserved for technocrats/ulema and women — and the PPP announced on Monday that it would contest elections on seven seats.

Also read: Senate poll process begins today

Eight PPP senators — Abdul Rehman Malik, Dr Farooq H. Naek, Abdul Qayyum Soomro, Islamuddin Shaikh, Maula Bux Chandio, Saleem Mandviwalla, Gul Mohammad Lot and Almas Perveen — are due to retire next month.

Mr Shaikh from Sukkur, former interior minister Rehman Malik, former finance minister Mandviwalla, Abdul Latif Ansari and Engineer Gyanchand will contest the elections on general seats, while former senate chairman Farooq H. Naek and Sassui Palijo will contest on seats reserved for technocrats and women, respectively.

Four of the seven candidates — Mr Malik, Mr Shaikh, Mr Mandviwalla and Advocate Naek — were repeated by the party.

A PPP leader said it was a tough decision as more than 100 candidates had applied for party tickets.

The three new faces — Mr Ansari, Engineer Gyanchand and Sassui Palijo, who represented the Hyderabad, Tharparkar and Thatta districts, respectively — have been awarded party tickets because of their unflinching and years-old loyalty to the PPP.

Mr Ansari, who began his political career over five decades ago in Hyderabad and has been associated with the PPP since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, told Dawn that slain PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto had made him senator in 2003. “Also, I was the youngest member of the senate in 1975 when Bhutto sahib gave me a party ticket,” he said.

He said he remained the senator until the martial law of former dictator Ziaul Haq. He got a master’s degree in Muslims History from Sindh University.

Engineer Gyanchand’s association with the PPP spans over two decades. Hailing from Deeplo in Tharparkar district, he completed his education from Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, in 1990.

An arch-rival of former chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, he told Dawn that Mr Rahim got him arrested in 1991 during the Jam Sadiq government. “I am son of a primary schoolteacher and I had never planned for politics, but thanks to Arbab Rahim actions, I joined politics,” he remarked, sarcastically.

He had been elected a member of the provincial assembly as an independent candidate on a seat reserved for minorities in 1993 and then he joined the PPP. He had contested and lost the 2013 general election on a provincial assembly seat (PS-60) against Arbab Rahim.

He told Dawn that he belonged to the Meghwar community.

Sassui Palijo belongs to a family of political activists in Thatta. Her father, who is a PPP leader and a former MPA, and mother both remained active in politics.

She entered politics in 2002 when she was given a party ticket for the elections on a provincial assembly seat (PS-85) in Thatta in place of her father, Ghulam Qadir Palijo, who did not possess a graduation degree — a mandatory requirement of that time to contest the elections. She won the seat and played an active role as an opposition lawmaker from 2003 to 2008.

She also won the 2008 general elections from the same constituency and became a minister in the Qaim Ali Shah-led provincial cabinet. However, she lost the 2013 elections.

Meanwhile, a senior PPP leader dispelled the impression that by fielding seven candidates, the PPP had surrendered its one seat.

“We have six confirmed seats [four general and one each seat for technocrat and women] but we are sure that we will get another one [with seat adjustment],” said PPP Senator Saeed Ghani while speaking to Dawn.

He said the PPP had won eight senate seats in 2009 and 2012 because of different reasons. In 2009, he said, the PPP had won eight senate seats because the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had not contested the election on a technocrat seat against the PPP’s Rehman Malik.

The 2012 senate elections in Sindh were held on 12 seats, which included a seat reserved for minorities, he said. Excluding the reserved seat, there were 11 senate seats and PPP won seven of them. “So if you see the results on 11 seats, we got elected seven senators, the MQM got three and the PML-Functional got one seat.”

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2015

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