QUETTA: Independent senator-elect Ahmed Khan Khilji has urged the leadership of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and National Party (NP) to support senator-elect Sadiq Sanjrani in the election for the office of Senate chairman as he belongs to Balochistan.

Talking to journalists here on Sunday, Mr Khilji said that the Pakistan Peoples Party, the second largest party in the Senate having 20 members, had agreed to support Mr Sanjrani for the top slot of the upper house. He claimed that PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari had accepted the request of the Balochistan’s independent senators-elect group not to nominate the party’s candidate in favour of the Balochistan’s candidate. “It is the right of the people of the province that new Senate chairman should be from there.”

Mr Khilji said that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan had handed over all 13 senators of his party to Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo to strengthen the province’s position in the election for the top office of the Senate.

He said when two major parties of the country were supporting Balochistan’s candidate for the office of Senate chairman, it was responsibility of the PkMAP and the NP to put their weight behind Mr Sanjrani.

“Ball is now in the court of Baloch and Pakhtun nationalists,” he said and expressed the hope that the two parties would announce their support for Mr Sanjrani.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2018