All candidates for the Senate seats from Punjab were elected unopposed on Thursday, as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) approved nomination papers of 12 candidates for 12 seats. However, these were unofficial results.
The candidates also declared their assets and surprisingly Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, a landlord turned out to be one of the poorest candidates. The nomination papers of Mohsin Leghari were rejected for not having attached party nomination with his papers.
There are 12 Senate seats for each province with seven general, two technocrats, two women and one minority seat.
From the PPP, Babar Awan and Aslam Gill were elected for general seats, Aitzaz Ahsan for technocrat seat and Khalida Bosan of Muzaffargarh was elected on a women’s seat.
The PPP has also opted for seat adjustment with the PML-Q, which has given a ticket to Kamil Ali Agha.
The PML-N also announced seven nominees for the Senate tickets in the Upper House. Ishaq Dar was elected on a technocrats’ seat, Sardar Zulfiqar Khan Khosa, Zafar Dhandla, M Hamza from and Rafique Rijwana on general seats, while Begum Nuzhat Amir Sadiq was elected on the women’s seat and provincial Minister for Finance and Human Rights Kamran Michael on the minorities’ seat.
The candidates also declared their assets and astonishingly some members turned out to be very poor and paid very little in taxes. For instance, Senior Adviser to Punjab Khosa paid Rs 7,000 in tax whereas he owned 99 acres of land. He also had only Rs 0.7 million in the bank account.
PML-N’s Zafarullah Dhandhla, another would-be senator paid only Rs 3,000 agriculture tax annually. Dhandhla has Rs 0.5 million, two vehicles and 594 kanals of land.
Aitzaz Ahsan owns 800 kanals of land while his wife has 400 kanals. Aitzaz has 13 bank accounts with Rs 100.85 million while his wife has Rs 15 million in seven bank accounts.
Babar Awan has assets worth Rs 20.5 million in Spain. Apart from that property, he has two vehicles, agricultural land worth Rs 20 million and bank accounts containing Rs 70.78 million.
He had also made an investment in a private bank and company worth Rs 30.40 million. Awan also owns a house in Islamabad worth Rs 30 million and an office in Lahore worth Rs 2 million. The assets of Senate nominees have been challenged in the ECP.