Returning ‘millions’ to losing FATA Senate aspirants haunts MPs

A fear of paying back millions of rupees – meted out by Senate aspirants from FATA who eventually lost the race – is haunting members of the National Assembly from the Tribal Areas. Sources close to MNAs from FATA revealed that the MPs were worried over a possible payment of funds used in Senate elections by losing candidates. Lengthy discussions for a possible method for payment of the hefty amounts of money have been main the topic of meetings. The MNAs from FATA were worried over devising methods for paying back candidates who lost the Senate elections.
“Almost Rs 600 million were collected by candidates through one of their leader and were disbursed among the voters, but dilemma occurred as one vote was cast in favour of Munir Khan Orakzai despite announcement of withdrawal from the election process by him,” the sources said.
Scores of meeting for the payment of the said money have been held and more are in progress, but of no use, because of the wide-ranging differences and contradictions in the stands ranks of losing candidates and MNAs is proving great hindrance in the way of coming to any conclusion. Candidates stress that their money should be paid back to them as they had lost elections and MNAs did not vote for them, however, MNAs are of the viewpoint that they fulfilled their commitment by casting votes in the favour of candidates pinpointed by their leader. Sources said a consensus had been reached among the MPs from FATA to support specified candidates and votes were polled in accordance to an agreed strategy, but a single vote cast in favour of Munir Khan Orakzai changed the entire scenario in the polling, as only three agreed candidates could win while the fourth one was elected through a lucky draw.
Only nine of the 11 voters cast their votes in favour of the four candidates for the Upper House of parliament and two MNAs, Akhundzada Chitan and Abdul Malik Wazir, remained absent to avoid allegations of selling their votes.
Moreover, three candidates were elected on the basis of majority votes, while the fourth was elected through a lucky draw due to an equal number of votes cast in favour of Abdul Malik Qadri, Aurangzeb, Hamidullah Jan Afridi, Hilalur Rehman and Abdul Waheed Achakzai, who got four votes each.