Provincial Election Commission of Sindh has made all necessary arrangements for Senate elections to be held today (Friday) at Sindh Assembly's building to elect 10 Senators from Sindh. There are 12 seats of Sindh including seven general, two reserved for women, two reserved for technocrats/Ulema and one reserved seat for non-Muslims.
PPP's Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and MQM's Farogh Nasim have been elected unopposed on technocrat seats. There are eight candidates in the run for seven general seats, three for the two reserved seats for women and two candidates for the single reserved for minorities.
It may be noted here that the ruling coalition of PPP, MQM and PML-F made unsuccessful attempts to persuade Pakistan Muslim League Likeminded (PML-L) Chief Arbab Ghulam Rahim to withdraw his party's candidates from the contest, so that all the Senators could be elected unopposed. Three candidates of PML-L including Abdul Ghafar Qureshi (general), Yasmeen Farukh (women) and Photmal Dileep (non-Muslims) are contesting Senate election from Sindh.
Meanwhile, a meeting of PPP's Parliamentary Party was held here on Thursday with Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah in the chair at Chief Minister's House. Speaker Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza, some 81 MPAs and party candidates for Senate elections including Mian Raza Rabbani, Saeed Ghani, Aajiz Dhamrah, Dr Kareem Khawaja, Hari Ram, Sahar Kamran and others attended the meeting.
Speaking on the occasion, Shah said that March 2 was very important day for PPP and its elected representatives. He said that many forces and politicians hatched conspiracies and tried to derail the democratic process, but PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari foiled these by following the policy of reconciliation of late Benazir Bhutto.
He urged upon the party MPAs to uphold their unity, solidarity and strength for electing party candidates to Senate. On the occasion, the MPAs expressed their full confidence in party leadership particularly in President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah.