ISLAMABAD, March 6: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League and its coalition partners slightly increased their majority in the Senate, according to unofficial results of the elections held in the four provincial assemblies on Monday. Polling was held for 37 of the 50 seats which fell vacant after a draw on Jan 2. Eight senators had earlier been elected unopposed.

The ruling coalition has secured 25 seats while the opposition managed to retain 20 seats. The election on the five remaining seats will be held on March 10.

According to the unofficial results, the ruling PML succeeded in getting highest number of 19 seats in all the four provinces, followed by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) which obtained 10 seats. The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) managed to get five seats, out of the seven lost in the draw. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has bagged three seats and rest of the parties namely BNP(Awami), BNP (Mengal), PKMAP, JWP, ANP, PPP(S), PML(F) and PML(N) one seat each in the four provinces.

Now the ruling PML and its coalition partners have 56 members in the upper house while the strength of the opposition parties has been reduced to 39.

“Polling in all the four provinces for elections to the Senate has been completed and result of the poll is being declared by the concerned returning officers (provincial election commissioners) after count of votes,” said an announcement of the Election Commission.

A draw of ballots held by the commission in January gave a six-year tenure to half of the members of 100-seat Senate and chose the remaining 50 — 11 from each province, four from Fata and two from the federal capital — to retire at the end of a three-year term on March 11.

At the time of withdrawal of candidatures, seven candidates from the Punjab on general seats were elected unopposed namely Sardar Mohammad Jamal Khan Leghari, Syed Javed Ali Shah, Lt Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf, Mohammad Ali Durrani and Naeem Hussain Chathha of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), Dr Zaheeruddin Babar Awan of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and Mohammad Ishaq Dar of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). While Leader of the house in Senate Wasim Sajjad was also elected uncontested on the Technocrat seat from the federal capital.

Rest of the four seats, two each from technocrat/ulema and women, from Punjab were also bagged by the ruling coalition party when S. M. Zafar and Haroon Khan on technocrat seats while Mrs Gulshan Saeed and Mrs Nilofer Bakhtiar on women seats emerged successful.

On General seat from Sindh, Ahmed Ali and Col (retd) Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of the MQM remained undefeated while Justice (retd) Abdul Razak A Thahim (PML-F), Dr Khalid Mahmood Soomro (MMA-JUI), Dr Safdar Ali and Mian Raza Rabbani from the PPP whereas Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi of the PML emerged victorious.

On Technocrat seats, Prof Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada of MQM and Dr Javaid Leghari of PPP bagged the seats. Likewise Miss Ratna (PPP) and Mrs Semeen Siddiqui (PML) were elected successful on women seats from Sindh.

From the NWFP on General seats Mohammad Ghufran Khan (PPP), Prof Khurshid Ahmed, Mohammad Talha Mahmood, Maulana Gul Naseeb and Prof Mohammad Ibrahim Khan of MMA and Ammar Ahmed Khan and Saleem Saifullah Khan of PML bagged the seats.

On Technocrats seat Ilyas Ahmed Bilour of ANP and Mohammad Azam Swati of MMA remained successful while Ms Fauzia Fakheruz Zaman (PML) and Ms Afia Zia (MMA) were successful from women reserved seats.

From Balochistan on General seats, Mir Israrullah Khan of BNP(Awami), Dr Abdul Malik (BNP-Mengal), Jan Mohammad Khan Jamali (PML), Mohammad Ismail (MMA JUI-F), Shahid Hussain Bugti (JWP), Mir Mohabbat Khan Marri (PML) and Abdul Rahim Khan Mandokhail (PKMAP) were successful candidates.

On Technocrats seats, Saeed Ahmed Hashmi (PML) and Advocate Rehmatullah Kakar bagged the seats while Mrs Rehana Yahya Baloch and Ms Sabina Rauf remained successful on women reserved seats.

The Election Commission has asked the successful candidates to immediately submit their returns of the election expenses with the Returning Officers.

Names of the returned candidates would only be notified by Acting Chief Election Commission Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar after receipt of return of election expenses from the successful candidates, the commission said.

These returns should be submitted by the successful candidates to the concerned returning officers in the prescribed form as required under Rule 37 of the Senate (Election) Rules, 1975 and should be accompanied by an affidavit to be sworn by the returned candidates under Rule 38 of the Senate (Election) Rules, 1975.

The names of returned candidates shall not be published in the official Gazette who fail to submit the return of election expenses as required by Section 24 of the Senate (Election) Act, 1975, the announcement said.

The election for the one general seat of Islamabad by the entire 342-seat National Assembly and four Fata seats by 12 National Assembly members from Fata will be held on March 10.