‘PTI, PML-N underhand deal behind JUI-F’s seat loss in Senate’

PESHAWAR: Keeping in view the strength of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and its allies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, the party should have secured two seats but it lost the technocrat seat by a slight margin in the Senate elections held on March 5.
Maulana Attaur Rahman, provincial vice-president of the JUI-F and younger brother of the party’s chief Maulana Fazlur Rahman, was elected to the Senate on the general seat but the party candidate, Muhammad Yaqub Sheikh, lost on the technocrats’ seat.
With 17 MPAs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, the JUI-F had made seat adjustment with Awami National Party and Pakistan People’s Party having five MPAs each for the Senate elections, but the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz got elected two of its candidates as senators with 16 members in the provincial assembly.
“We are quite satisfied with our voters as our candidates secured the required number of votes both on the general and technocrat seats,” said provincial president of the JUI-F and former senator Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan. However, he added, due to the underhand deal between PTI and PML-N the JUI-F candidate lost only by 10 points on the technocrats’ seat.
“Our candidate Muhammad Yaqub Sheikh got 27 votes but in the second count the PML-N candidate was declared successful in the technocrats’ category,” he added.