ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has constituted a parliamentary board headed by party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to finalise candidates for the general election to be held in June or July in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

A notification about formation of the board was issued from the PPP chairman’s secretariat by his political secretary Jameel Ahmed Soomro on Wednesday.

Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Faryal Talpur, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, Chaudhry Latif Akbar, Raja Faisal Mumtaz Rathore, Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, Sardar Yaqoob Khan, Chaudhry Mohammad Yaseen, Chaudhry Pervaiz Ashraf, Sardar Qamar Zaman, Sardar Javed Ayub, Mian Abdul Waheed, Chaudhry Fakhar Zaman Gulpera, Amir Abdul Ghaffar Lone and Nabila Ayub are members of the parliamentary board.

The PPP has only five legislators in the 50-member AJK Assembly. The five-year term of the assembly and the government headed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz will end in July this year.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was the first party to have constituted its parliamentary board in February for awarding party tickets for the AJK elections.

The PTI had won only two seats in the last general elections held in July 2016 but only in the constituencies of the Pakistan-based Kashmiri refugees. It got a third seat when Barrister Sultan Mahmood returned in a by-election in Mirpur in November 2019.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2021