JUI-F's Abdul Ghafoor Haideri says govt did not offer him Senate deputy chairman post

ISLAMABAD: Senior JUI-F leader Abdul Ghafoor Haideri on Tuesday said the government had not made him any offer for the deputy chairman Senate post, according to Geo News.

Earlier,  Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak, who spoke to Geo News after meeting the JUI-F leader with Senate chairman Sadiq Sanjrani, said the government had offered to make Haideri the deputy chairman of the Senate.

Haideri nominated PDM's joint candidate for deputy chairman Senate post: sources

According to PDM sources, a committee headed by former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi decided to back Haideri as its joint candidate for the post of deputy Senate chairman.

Sources further said that it was decided that the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate will be from the PML-N. All recommendations by the committee will be forwarded to PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who will announce the decisions later.

Reacting to the news, PML-N's Punjab president Rana Sanaullah had said the move by the government seemed to be an attempt to cause a rift within the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

"The JUI-F is bound by the decisions of the PDM," he noted. "Maulana Fazlur Rehman chaired a meeting yesterday and it had been agreed with a consensus to nominate Yousaf Raza Gillani as the alliance's joint candidate for the Senate chairman elections," he had said.

Sanaullah added that a committee headed by Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had been formed to select the nominee for the Senate deputy chairman post. The PML-N leader had said that according to his information, the committee had picked Haideri's name as its nominee for the post as well.

The former Punjab law minister, however, had said that he didn't think the JUI-F would accept the offer.

JUI-F representative Hafiz Hamdullah had said he hadn't spoken to Haideri officially but said that according to his information, the veteran JUI-F leader had not been approached by the government.

However, he had said that if an offer is made, the PDM will take the decision on it. He confirmed that a committee headed by former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will take the lead in finalising the names of the alliance's nominee for the Senate deputy chairperson.

"How can we accept the government's offer? We don't even recognise the government," Hamdullah had said.

Sanaullah, on the other hand, had said the government should recognise the Opposition's numbers in the upper house and ensure Gillani's election to the Senate chairman seat unopposed.

"According to my information, no direct offer has been made by the government [for the deputy Senate chairperson's post]," he had said, adding that it may be possible that an offer could have been made to Haideri when he met Khattak.