Senate elections: 180 including Rabbani, Haider apply for PPP tickets from Sindh

As many as 180 Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leaders and workers from Sindh including Raza Rabbani, Professor N. D. Khan and Taj Haider have applied for party ticket to contest the upcoming Senate's elections. According to Election Commission of Pakistan, Senate elections are scheduled to be held on March 2, 2012.
Secretary General Jahangir Badar had asked aspirant candidates to apply for party ticket in writing by January 10, 2012, along with a draft of Rs 30,000. Fifty members of the upper house of the Parliament, including 11 from Sindh, will complete their six-year term in March 2012 and retire. The seats to be fallen vacant with their retirement would be filled through elections.
Sources told Business Recorder that People's Secretariat Islamabad received 180 applications from Sindh for party tickets. Senator Raza Rabbani, Professor N. D. Khan, Secretary General PPP Sindh Taj Haider, Sindh's member in National Finance Commission (NFC) Dr Kaiser Bengali, Mirza Ikhtiar Baig and Advisor to Chief Minister Sharmila Farooqui among others have applied for party tickets from Sindh.
Besides, names of Makhdoom Raqfiq-u-Zaman, brother of Federal Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Qazi Asad Abid and former advisor to Chief Minister Rashid Rabbani, sitting MNA Mahesh Malani, MPA Humera Alwni, Special Assistant to Chief Minister Pervaiz Ansari, former President PPP Karachi Najmi Alam, former district Nazim Khurshid Junejo, Salim Mandviwala, Special Assistant to Chief Minister Waqar Mehdi, former Secretary General PPP Karachi Saeed Ghani and Dr Tehseen Shaikh are among the ticket-seekers, they added.
Sources further said that a meeting of PPP's selection board held here with MNA Faryal Talpur in the chair at Chief Minister's House on Tuesday. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah, Minister for Local Government Agha Siraj Durani, Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah and others attended the meeting, the sources added. After the meeting, the board interviewed the applicants one by one and it would continue the process on Wednesday, they added.
It may be noted there are 22 Senators from Sindh including PPP's Rehman Malik (March 2009 to March 2015), Abdul Hafeez Shaikh (March 2006 to March 2012), Almas Parveen (March 2009 to March 2015), Dr Asim Hussain (March 2009 to March 2015), Dr Safdar Abbasi (March 2006 to March 2012), Farooq Hamid Naek (March 2009 to March 2015), Gul Muhammad Lot (March 2009 to March 2015), Islamududdin Shaikh (March 2009 to March 2015), Mian Raza Rabbani (March 2006 to March 2012), Moula Bakhsh Chandio (March 2009 to March 2015), Ratna Bhagwandas Chawla (March 2006 to March 2012), Syed Faisal Raza Abidi (March 2009 to March 2015), Semeen Yusuf Siddiqui (March 2006 to March 2012), MQM's Abdul Haseeb Khan (March 2009 to March 2015), Ahmad Ali (March 2006 to March 2012), Shirala Mallick (March 2009 to March 2015), Babar Khan Ghauri (March 2009 to March 2015), Colonel Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi (Retd) (March 2006 to March 2012), Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada (March 2006 to March 2012), JUI-F's Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro (March 2006 to March 2012), PML-F's Syed Sajid Hussain Zaidi (March 2006 to March 2012), PML-Q's Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi (March 2006 to March 2012) are enjoying the seats of Senate of Pakistan.