PTI finalises 24 seats of NA, 51 of PA from Sindh

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s parliamentary board on Thursday finalised names of party candidates for Sindh Assembly’s 51 seats and 24 seats of the National Assembly from the province.

PTI Chairman Imran, who returned from Saudi Arabia on Wednesday night, chaired the meeting, which awarded ticket to former federal minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi, who recently joined the party from NA-234, Dadu-I and his son Karim Jatoi also got the ticket from NA-235-Dadu-II.

Similarly, Ahsan Ali Jatoi and Sadaqat Ali Jatoi, reportedly his close relatives, also got tickets to run for PS-83, Dadu-I and PS-84, Dadu-II.

Others, who also will be running for the National Assembly seats from Sindh, include Imran Khan from NA-243 Karachi, Dr. Arif Alvi from NA-247 Karachi, Ali Haider from NA-244 and Faisal Vawda from NA-249. From this constituency, a party veteran Abdul Qayyum Kundi, who was quite hopeful of getting the go-ahead from the board, would now be contesting as an independent candidate.

Moreover, Najeem Haroon will be contesting from NA-256, Karachi while Haleem Adil Sheikh from PS-99, Firdous Shamim Naqvi from PS-101 and Imran Ismail fromPS-11.

Quite surprisingly, the party board has showed hardly any interest to field candidates from Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Umerkot. PTI has significant presence in these and some other districts as well.

“Indeed, we have committed activists in many other districts, but PTI does not believe in fielding candidates just for the sake of fielding. We want to make mark in this election and have been, therefore, very careful in selection of constituencies and candidates,” conceded a parliamentary board member, who insisted not to be identified here.