ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazal (JUI-F), Tuesday, decided to join hands in the coming elections of the Senate.
Both parties would support each other in the Senate by-election on March 14 and the Senate general election on April 2.
“The PPP will support the JUI-F in Balochistan Senate elections, while the JUI-F will extend support to Yousaf Raza Gillani,” JUI-F leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri said.
“We will not participate in government-making but play our role in the Parliament,” he said.
PPP leader Nayyar Bukhari has said that the PPP will extend support to the JUI-F candidate in the Senate’s by-election in Balochistan.
The Senate by-election will be held for six seats of the upper house in Islamabad, Sindh and Balochistan on March 14 (Thursday). Balochistan’s three Senate seats have been vacated and the JUI has requested the PPP’s support in Balochistan, Nayyar Bukhari said.
Yousaf Raza Gillani said, “We have discussed over the matter with Maulana Sahib scores of times, we welcome him here”.
“We are supporting each other for the Parliament and will work in tandem in the house,” he added.
It is to be mentioned here that Gillani and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC)’s Ilyas Meharban will contest in the Senate by-election on the vacant seat from Islamabad.
According to the election commission, polling will be held at the upper house of parliament as well as at Sindh and Balochistan assemblies in Karachi and Quetta from 9:00am to 4:00pm on Thursday.
Among these general category seats, one falls vacant in the federal capital, two in Sindh, and three in Balochistan as senators relinquished their seats, following their election as members of the National Assembly as well as provincial assemblies of Sindh and Balochistan.
Earlier, People’s Party decided to nominate Yousaf Raza Gillani as its candidate for the Senate chairman’s office and he was asked to relinquish his National Assembly seat from Multan.
In order to fill 48 vacant seats, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Monday, also announced holding the Senate elections on April 2.
Fifty-two seats in the upper house of parliament will fall vacant after the expiration of the six-year term of the incumbent senators today (Tuesday). The elections, however, would be held to elect 48 senators as four reserved seats for the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) had been abolished after the 25th Constitutional amendment.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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