Islamabad, Punjab seats: Tareen factor may play decisive role in Senate polls

ISLAMABAD: Former federal minister and influential political leader from south Punjab Jehangir Khan Tareen has been approached by both the ruling and the opposition parties of the country in the wake of next month’s Senate polls.

However, he has, so far, kept silence on the issue. He had played a crucial role in the formation of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) federal and Punjab governments, while the party was not in majority.

Jehangir Tareen, whose wife is the first cousin of former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, told The News on Saturday, he was happy about chances of return of Gilani to the mainstream politics by contesting the Senate polls. He said he would return to the federal capital the next week and make known his choices as far as the Senate polls are concerned. He said he had been meeting the relevant people regularly and was in-know of so many things. “Currently, I am in a ‘silent mode’ and listening to everything and everyone, but not speaking,” he said in a lighter vein. Tareen made it clear that he was very much relevant to politics and would play his role in due course as only few days had left for the Senate elections. He reminded that he was not involved in ongoing electioneering for Senate publicly, but he had a role that he would be playing.

Sources claimed that rebellion in the r ruling alliance ranks in south Punjab was handiwork of Jehangir Tareen and a strong group of members of National Assembly and Punjab provincial assembly was in contact with him. It is likely that Jehangir Tareen group would ultimately prove to be a difference between the winner and loser in Senate.

He will be having an important meeting with Yusuf Raza Gilani immediately after his arrival in Islamabad the next week, sources added.

Meanwhile, the Senate candidate from Islamabad, Yusuf Raza Gilani, said he was hopeful of majority vote of his constituents, as they would vote on merit and keep in view the past performance of the candidates and his party. “I am grateful to the PDM and members of Parliament in large number, who have assured him of their support.

“I am lucky that two former prime ministers – Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Raja Pervez Ashraf – have proposed and seconded my nomination papers for Senate. Yet another former PM Nawaz Sharif and a former president Asif Ali Zardari are also supporting me for the contest,” he added.

He recalled that his government brought 104 constitutional amendments through consensus. Any ordinance could not become a replacement of the constitutional amendment. He endorsed the views of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi that no voting that is not secret could be termed balloting. Secret voting is essence of democracy and parliamentary system. Gilani said former prime ministers and other political stalwarts should become members of the upper house of parliament since Pakistan’s democracy is in line with the West Minister system. Interestingly, Gilani’s then counterpart in India Dr Manmohan Singh is also member of the upper house in Indian Parliament these days.