PPP-JUI join hands for Senate by-election

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) on Tuesday decided to join hands in the Senate election. “The People’s Party will support the JUI in Balochistan Senate elections, while the JUI will extend support to Yousaf Raza Gillani,” JUI leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri said.

“We will not participate in government making but play our role in the Parliament,” Haideri further said. PPP leader Nayyar Bukhari has said that the PPP will extend support to the JUI-F candidate in the Senate’s by-election in Balochistan. The Senate by-election being held on vacant seats of the upper house on March-14. Balochistan’s three Senate seats have been vacated and the JUI has requested for the PPP’s support in Balochistan, Nayyar Bukhari said.

Yousaf Raza Gillani said,” We have discussed over the matter with Maulana Sahib scores of times we welcome him here”. “We are supporting to each other for the Parliament and will work in tandem in the house,” he added. It is to be mentioned here that Gillani and Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) Ilyas Meharban will contest in Senate by election on the vacant seat from Islamabad.

The Senate by election will be held for six seats of the upper house in Islamabad, Sindh and Balochistan on March 14 (Thursday). According to the election commission, polling will be held at the upper house of parliament as well as at Sindh and Balochistan assemblies in Karachi and Quetta from 9:00am to 4:00pm on Thursday.

Among these general category seats, one fall vacant in the federal capital, two in Sindh, and three in Balochistan as senators relinquished their seats, following their election as members of the National Assembly as well as provincial assemblies of Sindh and Balochistan. Earlier, People’s Party decided to nominate Yousaf Raza Gillani as its candidate for Senate chairman’s office and he was asked to relinquish his NA seat from Multan.