Daily Times

LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) seems confident to win the two Senate seats that fell vacant after the disqualification of PML-N Senators Haroon Akhtar and Sadia Abbasi for having the dual nationality, Daily Times learnt.

Sources within the PML-N claimed that the party has devised a robust strategy to win at least one out of two vacant seats of the upper house of the parliament despite the fact that it doesn’t have the required number game in the Punjab Assembly that is the electorate for these two seats.

Polling for one general and one reserved seats for woman in the Senate would be held in the Punjab Assembly on Thursday (tomorrow). The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has fielded Waleed Iqbal, the grandson of Allama Iqbal for the general seat against the PML-N’s Chaudhry Saud Majeed of Bahawalpur.

Waleed, who has served as PTI’s Lahore president in the past, lost the election from one of the constituencies of National Assembly from Lahore in 2013 and couldn’t get the ticket in the general elections of 2018.

Waleed’s father Justice retired Javaid Iqbal has also served as Senator in the 90’s and his grandfather Allama Iqbal is considered as the national poet of the country. Whereas Saud Majeed of PML-N remained member of both the upper and lower house of the parliament in the past and his father has also served as Mayor of Bahawalpur.

A tough contest is expected between the two candidates on general seats keeping in view the esteemed stature of Waleed Iqbal and the influence of Saud Majeed over the MPAs from South Punjab.

For the seats reserved for woman, PTI has fielded Seemi Aizdi, the sister of PTI’s stalwart Jehangir Tareen while former minister for health Saira Afzal Tarar will be the candidate of PML-N.

Tareen, a master of power politics, remained busy in the campaign for her sister in order to get her elected as member for the upper house of the parliament. On the other hand, Saira Afzal, a former MNA from Hafizabad, also hails from the renowned family of politicians as former president Rafique Tarar also belongs to the same family.

Although the number game in Punjab Assembly is slightly in the favor of PTI in the province but both the parties ran vigorous campaigns to clinch the seats. The parliamentary party meetings of PTI and PML-N were also held on Wednesday evening to devise the strategy for the Senate polls.

In the house of 371, PTI is leading in the number game with 180 MPAs while it also has the support of 10 MPAs from PML-Q. The opposition alliance has 174 MPAs with 167 lawmakers of PML-N and 7 MPAs of PPP who have already pledged to cast vote to former’s candidates.

The votes of four independent candidates and one from the Rah-e-Haq party will play an important role in the election.

Talking to Daily Times, PML-N’s senior MPA Samiullah Khan said that his party only needs 11 more votes from its original strength to clinch the Senate seat and they have worked tirelessly to woo the disgruntled MPAs who earlier elected as independent candidates but later joined the PTI.

“We are already in contact with the independent MPAs and we’ll be needed only 6 more votes if independent cast votes to our nominees,” Sami said, adding that our candidate Saud Majeed enjoys good relationship with MPAs from South Punjab who can give him votes as well.

Moreover, Punjab Governor Chaudhry Sarwar and Chief Minister Usman Buzdar chaired a joint meeting of PTI’s MPAs from South Punjab on Wednesday and asked them to cast the votes in line with the party policy. The polling in Punjab Assembly that will be polling station for the election would be held from 9 am to 4 pm continuously.