ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) have decided to contest election to a Senate seat from Islamabad on March 31 even though they don’t have the numbers to win it.

Talking to Dawn on Thursday, PPP leader Farhatullah Babar said the party in its meetings had decided in principle that in future it would not leave the field open for other parties and would contest all elections, irrespective of the possible results.

PTI legislator from Islamabad Asad Umar said his party too would contest the election. He pointed out that PTI had also contested the elections for the president of Pakistan and National Assembly speaker.

Polling to be held in NA on March 31

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has already announced schedule for election to the Senate’s general seat from Islamabad. The seat fell vacant after the appointment of Iqbal Zafar Jhagra of PML-N as the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Mr Babar said that PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, as the general secretary of the PPP-Parliamentarians, had invited applications from aspirants. The applications should be addressed to PPP Parliamentarians’ President Asif Ali Zardari.

Interestingly, the party’s announcement for inviting applications did not say whether the aspirants should submit certain non-refundable amount with their applications, which is a normal practice in almost all parties.

In response to a question, Mr Babar said he was not aware if the party had received any application for the ticket.

When asked about the possibility of cooperation betw­een the PPP and the PTI, Mr Babar said it was too early to speculate on the matter and that things would become clear in the next few days.

The PML-N is yet to finalise its candidate and a number of leaders from the federal capital are eyeing the Senate seat.

When contacted, Leader of the House in Senate and PML-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq said the party would not constitute any board for selecting the candidate and the decision would solely be taken by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as the head of the party.

According to the schedule announced by the ECP, polling to elect the Senate member from Islamabad will be held in the National Assembly from 9am to 4pm on March 31. The candidates are required to submit their nomination papers on March 21 (Monday) from 9am to 4pm. Scrutiny of the papers will be conducted the next day and the last date for filing of appeals against rejection or acceptance of the papers is March 24.

The appeals will be heard and decided on March 25 and candidates can withdraw their nomination papers by 4pm on March 6 following which the ECP will publish the final list of candidates on the same day.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2016