Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance, Shaukat Tarin, Advisor to PM on interior, Rehman Malik, Law Minister Farooq H Naek, and Abida Hussain are among the front runners as PPP candidates for Senate election, while the ruling party has received around 300 applications from party men for contesting poll.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Sunday that PPP central secretariat and provincial secretariats were scrutinising the applications for the vote to be held in two stages, in February and March. The party leadership is expected to finalise the list of its candidates by first week of February, which will be sent for approval by party co chairman Asif Ali Zardari.
Other persons who are seeking party ticket include Jehangir Badr, Chaudhry Manzoor, Sardar Ali Khan, Farhatullah Babar, Masood Kausar, Mir Baz Kithran and Shakir Raisani.
According to sources, the PPP top leadership is in concerted efforts to get support of PML (Q) as it wants to grab maximum seats from Punjab. Asif Zardari, Babar Awan and other leaders of PPP have already met PML (Q) Punjab president Pervez Elahi in last few days.
According to PML (Q), its strength in Punjab is more than 80 members in the 371-member house. However, the PML (N), which is the ruling party in Punjab, says that the number of the PML (Q) MPAs is less than what the former ruling party claims.
The PPP, in fact, knows that the hold of Shujaat Hussain and Pervez Elahi on the lower cadre of the party is very weak. This is the reason which forced the PPP central leadership to look into other options to muster maximum support for its Senate candidates.
It is on record that PML (Q) lost 23 votes in the presidential election held late last year. Some of PML (N) circles even claim that it has the support of more than 35 PML(Q) MPAs.
Besides Punjab, the PPP leadership is giving attention to NWFP, where it wants MPAs from PPP (Sherpao) to back its candidates. The provincial minister Sher Azam has been tasked to negotiate deal with Aftab Sherpao.
PPP is also looking for the support of JUI-F. The PPP is not 100 percent sure that JUI would support it wholeheartedly.
In Sindh and Balochistan, the PPP is in a comfortable position. Rehman is likely to contest from Sindh, and that was the reason that he had a meeting with MQM leader Altaf Hussain in London recently to get support of MQM MPAs in Sindh.