YouTube
Election Commission confirms that all 11 incoming senators from province have been accommodated without any polling
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday informally announced that the 11 available seats for the Senate election from Punjab province had been filled unopposed.
According to the ECP, the candidates were elected after their challengers withdrew their nomination papers. It said that five senators each had been elected from the ranks of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, while one had been elected from the PML-Q’s platform. An official notification for the senators’ unopposed election would be issued after the March 3 polls, it added.
Initially, 17 candidates had submitted their nomination against seven general seats. Of these, 10 withdrew their candidacies, leaving 7 nominees to be elected unopposed. Zahid Hamid, Saiful Malook Khokhar, Baleeghur Rehman, Saud Majeed, Umar Sarfaraz Cheema, Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, Ijaz Hussain Minhas, Muhammad Khan Madni, Zaheer Abbas Khokhar and Azeem-ul-Haq Minhas were the candidates who withdrew their nominations this week.
The seven general seats would now be filled by the PTI’s Saifullah Sarwar Khan Niazi, Aoun Abbas and Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry; the PMLN’s Afnanullah Khan, Sajid Mir, and Irfanul Siddiqui; and Kamil Ali Agha of the PMLQ. Of the remaining four seats, the two technocrat seats were secured by Syed Ali Zafar of the PTI and Azam Tarar of the PMLN, while the PTI’s Dr. Zarqa Taimur and PMLN’s Saadia Abbasi were elected unopposed on the two seats reserved for women.