Senate election process begins from February 11

The process of election to Senate will started from February 11, 2012, or this purpose Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has short listed names of candidates for awarding tickets from all over the country, including Sindh, and it is trying to get all senators elected unopposed from Sindh.
The notification No F.3 (1)/2012-cord(1)-issued by the ECP a few days ago mentioned that process of Senate election would be initiated from February 11, 2012. On that day, the Returning Officers would place public notices for inviting the nomination papers. While the candidates would file their nomination papers with Returning Officers on February 13 and 14, scrutiny of nomination papers would be held on February 16 and 17, 2012, the notification stated.
After completing all necessary stages, including filing of appeals against rejection of nominations, disposal of appeals by EC, last date of withdrawal and publishing of list of contesting candidates, the polling will be held on March 2, 2012, the notification said.
In order to contest Senate election, PPP has short-listed the initial names of would-be candidates from all over the country including Sindh province. Change of names can be made in the list even at the peak time of filing of nomination papers as PPP is trying its best to get all candidates unopposed from Sindh and other provinces as well, sources said.
Senators Raza Rabbani, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Ikhtiar Baig, Taj Hyder, Rafiq-u-Zaman, Sharmila Farooqui, Dr Kaiser Bengali, Pehlaj Rai, Waqar Mehdi, Rashid Rabbani, Najmi Alam and Asad Abid are among the initially short-listed candidates, sources said. Fifty members of the Senate, including 11 from Sindh, would be retired on March 11, 2012, and the Sindh Assembly, like other provincial assemblies, would elect new 11 senators on March 2, 2012.
Eight seats would be earned by the PPP while remaining four seats would come in the share of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) according to table of members of provincial assembly, political observers said. MQM would earn the two general, one reserved for women, and one reserved for technocrat seat while, rest of five general, one women and one technocrat seats would come in the net of PPP, they said.
Sources in Bilawal House said that PPP may give one seat of Senate to PML-F, a member party of a coalition government. President Asif Ali Zardari has shown green signal to give one seat of Senate to the PML-F leader Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh who met him a few days back at Bilawal House., sources said.
It may be noted here that Sindh's eleven out of total 22 senators would stand retired on March 11, 2012 including Abdul Hafeez Shaikh (March 2006 to March 2012), Dr Safdar Ali Abbasi (March 2006 to March 2012), Raza Rabbani (March 2006 to March 2012), Ratna Bhagwandas Chawla (March 2006 to March 2012), Semeen Yusuf Siddiqui (March 2006 to March 2012), Ahmad Ali (March 2006 to March 2012), Colonel (R) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi (March 2006 to March 2012), Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada (March 2006 to March 2012), Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro (March 2006 to March 2012), Sajid Hussain Zaidi (March 2006 to March 2012) and PML-Q's Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi (March 2006 to March 2012).