Sanjrani served under both PPP and PML-N

LAHORE: Senate Chairman Mir Sadiq Sanjrani is one of the few lucky politicians in the country, who have had a congenial working relationship with multiple political governments of yore.

However, as he is striving to get re-elected on this prized position by defeating Yousaf Raza Gillani. He has somehow fallen out of favour with the two major national political parties led by Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari who had once chosen him to serve their governments.

A peek into Sanjrani’s brief yet eventful political innings reveals that in March 2018, he was elected as the eighth chairman of Senate after securing 57 of the 103 polled votes, as both Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had rallied behind this independent candidate’s nomination. Raja Zafarul Haq, the PML-N candidate, could win the nod of only 46 senators. Sanjrani was nominated by the-then Balochistan chief minister, Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo.

Due to turn 43 on April 14, Sanjrani was appointed as the coordinator of the-then prime minister Nawaz Sharif's “Grievances Cell” at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat in 1998, a slot he continued to enjoy till Sharif’s ouster during General Pervez Musharraf’s coup of October 12, 1999.

In 2008, soon after winning the keys to the premier’s cozy office, Yousaf Raza Gillani had also appointed him as the head of his Complaint Cell at his Secretariat in the capital. Sanjrani kept serving on this position for five years.

On March 12, 2018, the Geo News had reported: “Sanjrani's father, Khan Mohammad Asif Sanjrani, is a tribal leader and a member of Chagai's District Council. The senator is the eldest of five brothers. His brother Aijaz Sanjrani was the adviser to the Revenue Department in this government in the tenure of Sanaullah Zehri as chief minister.

He continued to serve on the position after the incumbent chief minister took office. Another brother of the senator, Muhammad Razik Sanjrani, has served as the managing director of the Saindak Copper Gold Project.”

And on August 1, 2019, a no-confidence motion was presented against Sanjrani by the opposition in the Upper House of the Parliament, though the move had proved futile as his political foes could only muster support of 50 senators, or three votes short of the number required to dethrone him.