Prime Minister Imran Khan convened an emergency meeting of the PTI’s parliamentary board on Monday after party workers objected to the distribution of tickets in the Senate elections, a private TV channel reported.
The premier consulted party leaders on the issue of tickets in the Senate elections at the board meeting and indicated that some decisions might be changed. He stressed that all tickets will be issued on the basis of merit, adding that he respects the wishes of his party’s members and that the ‘parachuters’ will not be made senators. Reports said that the final decision on the distribution of tickets is expected within the next 24 hours.
Senate tickets being given to Federal Minister Faisal Vawda and wealthy construction contractor Saifullah Abro has created a rift among PTI leaders from Sindh. They have written a letter to Sindh Governor Imran Ismail over it.
Earlier, the central party leadership withdrew the Balochistan Senate ticket from business tycoon Abdul Qadir after backlash and issued it to Zahoor Agha.
Encouraged by the Balochistan fiasco, key party leaders from three zones of rural Sindh approached the governor to show their anger and demand the party’s high command to take back tickets from Vawda and Abro. In the letter, PTI office-bearers from three regions said they were ‘extremely disappointed with the entire process’ of the selection of PTI’s candidates for the Senate polls. The PTI leaders from rural Sindh asked to review the allocation of the Senate tickets from Sindh and said the decision will harm the party in the upcoming local government polls.
The leaders who signed the letter included Sadaqat Ali Jatoi [who is also the brother of former Sindh chief minister Liaquat Jatoi], PTI Sukkur district President Mubeen Jatoi, Allah Bux Unnar and Raja Khan Jhakrani, former provincial secretary general Mehfooz Usrani, a former candidate from NA-214 Shaheed Benazirabad Gul Muhammad Rind, former provincial minister Agha Taimoor Khan Pathan, Papu Khan Chachar and other office-bearers.
Meanwhile, PTI leaders held a meeting with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who is also PTI’s vice-chairperson, and expressed their reservation over the selection of candidates for the Senate ticket. Qureshi, who is in Karachi, assured them of addressing their concerns.
According to reports, the PTI leaders asked the party leadership not to consider Vawda as a candidate for the Senate. “If he is de-seated from his National Assembly seat, the party should nominate him from the constituency. If he is disqualified and not allowed to contest, the party will risk a seat which will make no sense.”
Showing concern over finalising Abro, a wealthy construction contractor, for the Senate on the technocrat seat, the PTI leaders asked how the Senate ticket was given to a newcomer in the party. They alleged that cases against Abro, who has still been working closely with the Pakistan People’s Party leadership and is famed for being an ‘ATM machine’, have been pending in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). The PTI leaders from rural Sindh asked to review the allocation of the Senate tickets from Sindh and said the decision will harm the party in the upcoming local government polls.
Federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda said Monday the PTI’s decision was “the most important for me after Allah’s” and that rift among the ruling party were ‘not a big deal’.
Talking to a private TV channel, he said he cannot comment on the dual nationality case since it is being heard by the court.
The minister said Saeeda Abbasi, the sister of the former prime minister and PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, was removed by the court. Her case should also be investigated. “I too can write a letter with the signatures of 25 million people,” he said, referring to the letter written by PTI’s Sindh leadership to the Sindh governor, protesting the party’s decision to award him a Senate ticket.
In response to a question regarding the upcoming Senate elections and Murtaza Wahab, Vawda replied that whatever the Sindh government spokesperson may say, “he is my younger brother”. “I would have been happy if he had been given a Senate ticket but he did not get it,” he said.
