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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz has claimed that her party’s Senators were being asked not to vote for the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) candidate in the March 12 election for Senate chairman.
In a Tweet today (Thursday), the Maryam alleged that PML-N Senators were being called and asked not to vote for Yousuf Raza Gilani in the upcoming Senate chairman election.
“Some of them have recorded the evidence,” she added. The PML-N leader, however, did not specify as to who was holding such conversations with the party’s members.
Our senators are being called and asked not to vote for PDM candidate. Some of them have recorded the evidence.
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) March 11, 2021
On Friday, March 12, the upper house of the Parliament will elect its chairman and deputy chairman Senate. The government has decided to back the current Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani while the PDM has thrown its weight behind former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani.
The Senate elections have heightened tensions between the government and the Opposition after Gillani defeated Abdul Hafeez Shaikh by polling 169 votes against his opponent’s 164 votes.
On March 8, the opposition alliance warned the establishment against any attempt to interfere in the polls for the Senate chair position, scheduled for March 12.
Addressing a news conference after a meeting of the PDM leaders, PDM President Maulana Fazlur Rehman said there was evidence that intelligence agencies violated the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) code of conduct and tried to influence the March 3 Senate polls by threatening and luring the voters.