Shaukat Tarin elected as senator from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin has been elected as a senator from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) on Monday.

The finance adviser won with 87 votes from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly. Tarin will now be able to work as the federal minister on finance and preside over key government and parliamentary meetings.

Out of 145 members of the provincial assembly, 122 cast their votes during today’s Senate by-election. Tarin will now be able to work as the federal minister on finance and preside over key government and parliamentary meetings.

The finance adviser won the seat after securing 87 votes. Meanwhile, Shaukat Jamal Ameerzada of the Awami National Party and Zahir Shah of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl secured 13 votes each. PPP’s Mohammad Saeed did not manage to secure a single vote.

Last month, PTI’s Muhammad Ayub Afridi resigned as member of the upper house and vacated his seat. According to media reports, the government wanted to get Tarin elected to Senate on the seat vacated by Afridi to ensure he can become the finance minister again.

Talking to journalists in Peshawar after his election today, Tarin said that he will focus on the province’s financial and economic problems. He said that his contribution to the province would be “progressive”.

“KP is very close to me because the people of the province have gone through a lot of hardship,” he said, vowing to work for the people’s welfare with even more dedication.

Commenting on the exponential rise in inflation, Tarin said that this was a worldwide phenomenon. “Commodity prices have doubled in the past one year,” he said, giving the examples of petrol, edible oil, steel and coal.

Major world powers, such as the United States, have also been affected by inflation, he said, adding that prices were expected to decline in the next few months. He added that the government had provided subsidies to the people on several essential items in an effort to give them relief.

Tarin was appointed as the finance minister on April 17 and his constitutional tenure ended on October 16 after which he was appointed as the finance adviser to the PM. According to the Constitution, in order to continue as the finance minister for longer than six months, Tarin needed to be elected to parliament.

Second attempt

The government had previously tried to get former finance minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, who was also not a member of parliament, elected to the Senate.

Shaikh was appointed as the finance minister in December 2020 and was the government’s candidate for the hotly contested general seat from Islamabad in March’s Senate elections.

But in a blow to the government, Shaikh lost to the joint opposition candidate Yousuf Raza Gilani — a result which led PM Imran to seek a vote of confidence from the National Assembly to show he still held the majority.

Shaikh was later removed as finance minister on March 29 and was replaced with PTI’s Hammad Azhar, who was shortly replaced with Tarin.