ISLAMABAD, March 6: An inquiry committee formed to probe unexpected defeat of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party leader Aslam Gill in Senate election was not able to complete its report on Tuesday.

The meeting of the committee headed by MNA Faryal Talpur was held in the Presidency in which PPP’s members of the Punjab Assembly were called.

The meeting concluded that MPA Aslam Gill lost his seat in Senate because of two reasons -- mismanagement on the part of PPP Punjab and some ‘underhand’ deals by five to six MPAs of the ruling party with other candidates.

“The committee has sought assistance of some agencies to pinpoint the people responsible for the defeat and humiliation to the party,” the losing candidate of Senate polls, Aslam Gill, told Dawn.

“It is very difficult for the legislator to ascertain who had sold his loyalty and, therefore, the assistance of some intelligence agencies has been sought,” he said.

The PPP leader revealed that Faryal Talpur, sister of President Asif Ali Zardari, had called him for a one-to-one meeting on Wednesday in Islamabad.

Giving details about the meeting, he said he was not present in the meeting because he wanted to give a fair chance to the MPAs to inform the inquiry committee about what actually happened during Senate polls in Punjab.

“But some of the PMAs told me that majority of the participants expressed dissatisfaction over the role of leader of the opposition in Punjab Assembly Raja Riaz. They were of the view that mismanagement on his part was one of the main reasons of the defeat,” he said.

In view of the demand of majority of MPAs, it is believed that the PPP leadership may change the leader of opposition in Punjab in the near future.

The inquiry committee believed that five to six MPAs of the ruling party had voted for some other candidates, instead of Aslam Gill, in Senate polls held on March 2.

A participant of the meeting quoted Ms Talpur as saying: “Those who have ditched the party and blood of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto will never be tolerated.”

The decision to initiate inquiry into the defeat of Aslam Gill was taken by President Asif Ali Zardari in the PPP core committee meeting on Monday.

The committee was to present its report to the president within 24 hours, but it seems that it will take some more time.

It has been learnt that President Zardari was of the view that some MPAs had ‘ditched’ the party.

It was due to the support of certain PPP MPAs that Mohsin Leghari, an MPA of Pakistan Muslim League (forward block), got elected as senator despite limited numerical strength of his party in the Punjab Assembly.

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