KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party’s Nisar Ahmed Khuhro on Wednesday emerged victorious on a Senate seat from Sindh that fell vacant after the disqualification of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Faisal Vawda.

Major opposition parties — PTI, Muttahida Qa­­umi Movement-Pakistan and Grand Democratic Allian­­ce — had already annou­n­ced boycott of the polling process. Two smaller opposition parties, the Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan and Mut­tahida Majlis-i-Aml, also did not turn up for voting.

However, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah claimed that four disgruntled PTI members also voted for the PPP candidate. He did not name them, but some media reports identified them as Shaheryar Khan Shar, Kareem Bakhsh Gabool, Aslam Abro and Deewan Sachand.

After the day-long polling in the Sindh Assembly and counting of votes, Sin­dh Election Commis­sioner Saeed Gul annou­nced that total 101 MPAs exercised their right to vote on Senate general seat.

He said that PPP’s Khuhro managed to bag 99 votes, while two votes were rejected.

Later, talking to reporters, CM Shah said that the four PTI MPAs showed their ‘no-confidence’ in the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan by casting vote in favour of the PPP candidate.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2022