LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has suggested the example set in the Senate polls in Punjab, where all the candidates got elected unopposed, should be emulated in other provinces as well.

“Owing to personal efforts of Punjab Assembly Speaker Parvez Elahi, all the candidates for the Senate in Punjab have been elected unopposed,” Mr Shujaat said in a statement here on Saturday.

There will be no polling for the 11 Senate seats from Punjab as all the candidates in three categories — seven general seats and two each reserved for the women and technocrats — stand elected unopposed after disqualification or withdrawal of papers by other contestants.

Five seats each have gone to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), while one has been grabbed by the PML-Q, an ally of the PTI.

He said Mr Elahi had talked to the leaders of other political parties, including the PPP co-chairman former president Asif Ali Zardari and of the PML-N, taking them into confidence.

Due to these contacts all the candidates got elected to the Senate unopposed, he added.

“In the past we had resolved the issue of the Senate in the then NWFP (now KP) through dialogue when a candidate, Sardar Tanveer, was left alone. Everyone tried but Sardar Tanveer announced withdrawal of his candidature at our request and Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour and other leaders were elected unopposed as senators,” he said and added the other provinces too needed a similar spirit of “understanding on the Senate poll and other national issues to reduce political tension in the country.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2021