THE first line of Senate’s manual on its ‘purpose and role’ says that the main purpose for the creation of the Senate was to give “equal representation to all the federating units…” A person recently elected to represent the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in Senate happened to be a permanent resident of Karachi. Only a couple of weeks before his election, his voter registration had to be shifted to KP to enable him to contest the seat.

Objections were raised when the matter was taken to a court which allowed the said person to represent KP in the upper house of parliament. As such, there is no irregularity or illegality involved in the matter, but it is clear that “equal representation to all the federating units” is not what the Senate seems to be all about.

I am deeply disappointed with every single member of the KP provincial assembly who chose party’s priorities over a chance to truly represent the people.

Juwayriyah Qazi
Abbottabad

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2022