Imran Khan okays PTI candidates for April 2 Senate polls

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Saturday released the final list of candidates approved by founding chairman Imran Khan for the upcoming Senate elections on the vacated seats in the upper house of parliament on April 2, putting to rest the ongoing controversy around the names of contenders.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is set to hold the Senate election next month to fill the 48 seats that fell vacant upon the expiration of the 6-year term of the incumbent senators last week.

As per the electoral body’s schedule for Senate polls, today (March 16) is the last date for the submission of nomination papers.

Earlier, senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser expressed doubts if the names of candidates has been finalised by the PTI's founding chairman Imran Khan or not.

However, PTI later released the list of candidates "approved" by Khan, via the party's official account on X, formerly Twitter.

Here is the province-vise list of candidates:

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

General Seats:

• Murad Saeed (Covering: Azhar Mashwani)
• Faisal Javed Khan
• Mirza Afridi
• Irfan Saleem
• ⁠Khurram Zeeshan

Technocrats:

• Azam Swati
• Irshad Hussain

Women:

• Ayesha Bano
• Rubina Naz

Punjab

General Seats:

• Hamid Khan
• Zulfi Bukhari (covering: Omer Sarfraz Cheema & Col Ijaz Minhas)

Technocrats:

• Dr Yasmeen Rashid

Women seat:

• Sanam Javed

PTI leader Mian Aslam Iqbal had earlier announced the party's candidates for the Senate elections, but confusion emerged as Qaiser raised questions regarding the names of candidates.

"I have no clue if Imran Khan approved it or not. I don't want to comment on it," Qaiser made these comments while speaking during an interview with a private news channel on Friday.

The remarks came at a point when the top party leadership sees rifts and differences in opinion regarding major decisions including making an alliance with the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) after February 8 elections.