ISLAMABAD: The Senate will meet at the Parliament House on Tuesday afternoon to bid farewell to 50 outgoing Senators who are retiring from March 12 after completing their six year term.
The session is expected to continue for a few days and will culminate prior to next session when the new Senators-elect will take oath for their term of six years on March 12.
Recent Senate elections have changed the party position in the House with Pakistan Muslim League losing many of its key legislators and PPPP emerging as a majority party with 41 seats in the House of 104.
PML-N is the second largest party after PPPP with 14 members followed by ANP with 12, MQM and JUI-F with seven members each and once the leading party in the House PML-Q, just becoming a back bencher with five members.
Those retiring on March 12, include two Senators from the Federal Capital, 11 each from all the four provinces and four from Federally Administerated Tribal Areas(FATA).
From Federal Capital the two retiring Senators are Tariq Azeem and Wasim Sajjad, two PML-Q stalwarts. However, the party managed to retain its seat from the Capital as its another key figure Mushahid Hussain Syed returned uncontested.
Those retiring from Punjab after completing six-year term are Ishaq Dar of PML-N, Babar Awan of PPP, Jamal Leghari of PML-Q, Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi (Retd) of PML-Q, Muhammad Ali Durrani of PML-Q and Naeem Hussain Chattha of PML-Q all on general seats. However, PML-N's Ishaq Dar and PPPP's Babar Awan have again been elected to the House. Other PML-Q Senators from Punjab are Gulshan Saeed, Nilofer Bakhtiar, S.M. Zafar and Haroon Akhtar.
From Sindh, Senators retiring from general seats are Mian Raza Rabbani, Syed Sajid Hussain Zaidi and Dr Safdar Ali all from PPP and Ahmed Ali and Tahir Mashhadi from MQM, Dr Khalid Soomro of JUI-F and Abdul Ghafar Qureshi of PML-Q. However, for Raza Rabbani and Tahir Mashhadi, it will be a matter of moments as they will take oath as Senators just moments after they will resign.
Other retiring Senators from Sindh include Ms Ratna of PPP, Semeen Siddiqui of PML-Q, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh of PPPP and MQM's Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada. However, Dr Hafeez Sheikh has been again elected uncontested to the Upper House.
From Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on general seats the retiring Senators are PML-Q's Ammar Ahmed Khan and Saleem Saifullah Khan both from PML-Q, Moulana Gul Naseeb Khan and Muhammad Talha Mahmood from JUI-F, JI's Prof Khurshid Ahmed and Prof Muhammad Ibrahim Khan and PPP's Muhammad Ghufran Khan. However, Talha Mahmood has once again been elected to the Senate.
Other retiring Senators are Fauzia Fakhar-uz-Zaman of PML-Q, Afia Zia of Jamat-i-Islami, Ilyas Ahmed Bilour of ANP and Qazi Muhammad Abdullah of JUI-F. However, Ilyas Bilour has again been elected to the Senate.
Four retiring Senators from FATA are Hafiz Rashid Ahmad, Abdul Raziq, Abdur Rashid and Maulana Muhammad Saleh Shah.
From Balochistan, the retiring Senators are JWP's Shahid Hassan Bugti, Muhammad Ismail of JUI-F, Mir Israrullah Khan of BNP- A, Mir Mohabat Khan Marri of PML-Q, Abdur Rahim Khan Mandokhail of PKMAP, Dr Abdul Malik (IND) and Jan Muhammad Khan Jamali of PML-Q.
Four more Senators including Rehana Yahya Baloch of PML-Q, Sabina Rauf of JUI-F, Saeed Ahmed Hashmi of PML-Q and Rahmatullah Kakar of JUI-F are also retiring.
As the political activity is in full swings, the coming days will ascertain about Chairman, Deputy Chairman. Other slots to be filled by the newly elected Senators for different committees and Parliamentary bodies.
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