LAHORE, Jan 26: A Pakistan People’s Party board has completed interviews of more than 500 candidates for Senate tickets and it will send the short-listed names to the party co-chairman after seat-adjustment talks with the PML-Q are over.

Headed by President Zardari’s sister Faryal Talpur, the board has completed the ‘hectic exercise’ of interviewing such a large number of candidates.

A few candidates Dawn spoke to on Thursday said it was a “mere formality” on the pattern of recruitment to a government department. “However, the party has generated a handsome revenue (Rs30,000 per candidate for applying for the ticket) through the exercise,” a candidate said.

Another candidate said a cup of tea offered to him during the interview cost him Rs30,000 and broke into laughter after his comment.

PPP secretary-general Jehangir Badr told Dawn that some 60 women were among those interviewed. “It is not easy to shortlist the candidates because of their political credentials, however, the final decision rests with the party co-chairman,” Mr Badr said.

A source close to Ms Talpur said Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and former law minister Babar Awan were certain to get tickets for Punjab’s two general seats, while there was a tie between Amina Taseer, the wife of slain Governor Salmaan Taseer, and Shabina Riaz Sheikh, the wife of former IB Punjab chief Ahmad Riaz Sheikh, for a woman’s seat. The PPP leadership, he said, was considering conceding a technocrat seat in Punjab to the PML-Q under a seat-adjustment formula. The source said the PPP leadership was still persuading Ghazanfar Gull to become a senator and forget about contesting against the PML-Q in Gujrat for a National Assembly seat in the next general election. Mr Gull is reportedly weighing up the option.

The parleys between the PPP and PML-Q on Senate seat adjustment are under way, as the former has to discuss the issue in its core committee. The PML-Q, which is likely to get six or seven seats in the Senate according to its existing strength in provincial assemblies, has sought three more seats. The PPP may have 20 without seat-adjustment with the PML-Q.

“We want the PPP to have Senate seat-adjustment under the agreement between the two parties,” PML-Q central information secretary Kamil Ali Agha told Dawn. He said the PML-Q wanted seats according to its original strength in assemblies and not according to the current strength -- after emergence of a forward bloc. He said negotiations would be finalised in the first week of next month.