Daily Times

On Thursday, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin said that he had filed his nomination papers for a vacant Senate seat from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Earlier, PTI’s Muhammad Ayub Afridi stepped down as a member of the upper house to Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani and vacated his seat. According to media reports, the government wanted to get Tarin elected to Senate on the seat vacated by Afridi to clear his way to become the finance minister again.

Tarin’s lawyer filed the nomination papers at the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) Peshawar Office. Provincial ministers Taimur Saleem Jhagra and Kamran Khan Bangash were Tarin’s proposer and seconder, respectively.

Talking to the media, Bangash said that all kinds of people lived in the province, adding that Tarin’s “roots” were from KP. “People from other political parties have also gotten Senate tickets from KP,” he said.

He added that Tarin’s vote was registered in Mardan and that his wife also belonged to the province.

Polling for the vacant Senate seat will be held in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Dec 20. As per the schedule, the candidates will file their nomination papers with the returning officer from Nov 30 till Dec 2, while the names of the nominated candidates will be published on Dec 3.

The last date for the scrutiny of nomination papers is Dec 6, while appeals can be filed against acceptance or rejection of nominations by Dec 8. Dec 10 has been fixed as the last date for the disposal of appeals by the tribunal, while the returning officer will publish the revised list of candidates on Dec 11. Candidates can withdraw their candidature by Dec 13.

On April 17, Tarin was appointed as the finance minister and his constitutional tenure ended on October 16 after which he was appointed as the finance adviser to the PM. According to the Constitution, in order to continue as the finance minister for longer than six months, Tarin needed to be elected to parliament.