Senate elections: Nawaz jetting to Karachi to muster support

LAHORE: In a bid to sweep the Senate elections and win all provinces including Sindh, where the PML-N has thin support, party president Nawaz Sharif has scheduled a two-day trip to Karachi.

He is set to arrive in Karachi on February 1, and a “grand welcome” is being planned at the airport. Later he will meet members of the business community of the province and PML-N executive committee members for Sindh. Arrangement for the Senate elections would be finalised in that meeting, according to a senior PML-N leader. He will also address lawyers and later attend a seminar.



He is scheduled to return on February 2, and will immediately begin preparing for a PML-N rally in Peshawar on February 4, where “exposing the flawed governance of PTI and winning the support of voters for the general election” is on the agenda, said senior party officials.

On February 5 – Kashmir Day – Sharif will address an event at Muzaffarabad in AJK. Sources said he is also expected to attend another rally in Chitral in the second week of February as part of his mass contact drive. Sources said that during his Karachi trip, Sharif will formulate a committee to manage Senate election arrangements in Sindh.

Senator Mushahidullah Khan said that PMLN will bag an easy victory in Senate election “despite the failed horse trading attempts of Asif Zardari”.



He predicted that the next Senate chairman and deputy chairman will both be from the PML-N. He said Sharif has sent no request to PPP Cochairman Zardari for any meeting, adding that any such rumours are baseless.

Mushahidullah said the party’s Senate election committee for Baluchistan has been finalised. He said that the committee will comprise Yaqoob Khan Nasir, Ameer Afzal, and Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, whereas the three-member committee for K-P is Amer Muqam, Sardar Mehtab, and Abbas Khan Afridi. He said that Punjab CM Shehbaz Sharif will look after the same in Punjab. He said that no governors have been taken on board for Senate election as their positions do not allow them to be involved in any political activities.