Senate elections: Hafeez dropped from final list of candidates

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has reportedly not included the name of Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance, in the final list of candidates for the upcoming Senate elections, it is learnt.

The list that had been finalised by a committee, which interviewed the potential candidates for technocrats' seats, sources said, had dropped Sheikh's names for taking part in the upcoming Senate polls, scheduled for March 11.

The reason for dropping the name of a person, who helped the government in efforts to put the fragile economy back on track when there was hopelessness everywhere, was that he was a technocrat having no affiliation with the party.

The sources said the diehard PPP workers were hell-bent and senior leadership had no option but to put its weight behind those who had rendered countless sacrifices for the party and left no stone unturned when it came to give a shut up call to the opponents.

They said that an interview of the potential candidates for senate election, which took place some days back in Karachi, had given go ahead signal to Faryal Talpur, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, Federal Religious Affairs Minister Khurshid Shah, Senator Raza Rabbani and Fauzia Wahab on general seats.

The sources said that senior party leadership realised that outsiders' nominations would dent the party's performance and bring more hopelessness to the disgruntled workers if the trend of pick and chose for important Senate slots continued bypassing the real workers.

The tickets for women seats were awarded to Sehar Kamran, a principal of Jeddah-based Pakistan International School and PPP Sindh Women Wing member Shahida Rehmani, while Sharmila Farooqi could not make it, sources added.