Worker who defied pressure gets PTI senate ticket

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) worker, who had refused to bow to pressure and surrender his candidacy in the last Senate polls, has now been fielded by the party as its candidate for the upcoming election on general seat in the Upper House, which fell vacant following the disqualification of Shibli Faraz.

The provincial cabinet has finalized Khurram Zeeshan, an advocate and active worker of the party from Kohat, as their main contender for the slot. His name is said to be approved by the party founder Imran Khan.

Polls are to be held for the vacant Senate slot on October 30.According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), nomination papers were filed for the slot till Thursday, while the list of candidates was published on Friday.

Scrutiny of nomination papers will be carried out on October 13 while the tribunal will dispose of appeals by October 17.Along with Khurram, Irfan Saleem is the covering candidate of PTI that has a clear majority in the provincial assembly. Irfan too has supported the candidature of Khurram for the vacant general seat in the Upper House.

Other candidates for the slot as per ECP are Dr Nisar Khan, Taj Muhammad Afridi and Abid Yousafzai.In the last Senate polls, Khurram Zeeshan proved to be the only candidate who refused to withdraw despite all pressures, forcing the lawmakers to go for the polls instead of unopposed election of Senators from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Hailing from Kohat, Kurram Zeeshan, a lawyer by profession, has been an active worker of PTI, continuously raising voice for the release of former prime minister Imran Khan. He lauded the appointment of Sohail Afridi as chief minister, saying he was going to face tough challenges. “Sohail Afridi’s appointment as Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa comes with a daunting set of challenges. At a young age, he brings a fresh perspective, and his humble background sets him apart from the country’s entrenched elite,” said Khurram on Thursday.

Khurram has served as civil judge in Abbottabad and later started practicing as a lawyer. He managed to get bail for hundreds of party workers after appearing in court on the PTI workers in the May 9 cases.

Besides, he is a trained pilot as well as a writer and poet who expressed his struggle and feelings through many of his poems. In early 2000s, he obtained a master’s degree from the Journalism and Mass Communication Department, University of Peshawar. He remained legal advisor in UAE and Pakistan in the last two decades.

Khurram is currently the deputy information secretary of the PTI KP.No one from his family was involved in politics before him, and he was the first to begin a political career from the platform of PTI.

He was the covering candidate in the last general elections for a National Assembly seat from Kohat from where Shehryar Afridi was the main contender.Acknowledging his years of loyalty and dedicated service to PTI, he was awarded a Senate ticket last year.

His priority number was later changed and he was placed on Number 5 in the general category. After the Senate polls were rescheduled for July 21 2025, party leaders asked him to withdraw his name and award the ticket to another candidate.

He and some other contenders, however, refused to withdraw from the polls and to make way for well off candidates who were elevated on the priority list. Other PTI workers succumbed to pressure and jirgas and withdrew a day before the polls but Khurram refused.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly had to elect seven Senators for general seats and two each for slots reserved for women and technocrats. The PTI and opposition parties had reached an agreement under which the former were to get six slots while the latter to obtain five seats in the Upper House. All these were to be elected unopposed.

However, Khurram refused to withdraw his papers, bringing voters to the assembly hall instead of the unopposed election. “If it is a matter of winning or losing, then I have already won because becoming a senator was not my goal, but I wanted to shatter the arrogance of the so-called elite who decide things within closed doors and get the slots unopposed,” Khurram said after the last Senate polls.