KARACHI: The former ruling party at the centre continues to suffer blows as two of its major candidates from Lahore and Sindh were declared ineligible by election tribunals on Tuesday. Today’s setback followed Monday’s rejection of an appeal by former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf challenging the decision of a returning officer rejecting him nomination.

On Tuesday, PPP’s Syed Asif Hashmi was disqualified by the election tribunal in Lahore with objections against him for not being 'sadiq'and 'ameen' upheld. Moreover, another PPP stalwart in Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah who had filed his papers to stand from PS-20 (Naushero Feroz-II) was also disqualified by an election tribunal.

All rejected PPP candidates have announced to file appeals against the rejections in the respective high courts.

Moreover, an election tribunal was expected to decide the fate of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan today.

PML-N on the other hand saw most of its candidates getting a green signal by election authorities. Both Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif were cleared by election tribunals and objections against the brothers were dismissed.

Today’s setback for PPP followed Monday’s decision of an election tribunal in Rawalpindi reinforcing the rejection of Raja Pervez Ashraf’s nomination papers by Returning Officer (RO) Khalid Arshad.

The former prime minister was to run for NA-51 in Gujjar Khan, from where he had won in two previous elections.

Ashraf’s lawyer and former law minister Farooq Naek has said his client would file an appeal against the tribunal’s decision.