ISLAMABAD, March 1: The President and parliamentary leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, has almost completed consultations with party colleagues after getting a node from President Gen Pervez Musharraf on the choice of new chairman of the Senate, and is likely to announce a party candidate for the post by Monday, informed sources told Dawn.

He held meetings with high presidential aides and top party leaders in the federal capital, and left for Lahore on Friday where he is expected to take his colleagues into confidence on the choice he already almost certainly has made.

The sources claimed that Mr Shujaat had already set his eyes on Anwar Bhinder.

The choice also looks close to the reality when seen in the light of the criteria set by the PML-Q chief who has been quoted as saying: “The senate chairman would be a competent and experienced parliamentarian who will neither be a selectee of the president nor his own.”

He would also discuss the choice with Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali who would reach Lahore to attend a function on Hameed Nizami on Sunday, the sources said.

They claimed that while Gen Musharraf had given a go ahead to Mr Shujaat on finding a “suitable” man for the top slot of the upper house. Most prominent among them being the former Sindh governor Mohammadmian Soomro and former senate chairman Wasim Sajjad.