ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) challenged the recently held election of Senate chairman in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday.

The petition, filed by Farooq H. Naek on behalf of Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) candidate for chairman of the upper House, prays to the court to stop Sadiq Sanjrani from working as a new Senate chairman by declaring the election null and void since the PDM members have a majority in the House.

The petition further reads that the decision to reject the votes cast in favour of Gilani was unconstitutional. “We were deprived of our Senate chairman seat unfairly. And that the notification, issued on March 12, declaring Sadiq Sanjrani as chairman was unconstitutional,” the petitioner adds.

Later speaking to the media outside the IHC, PPP leader Nayyer Bukhari said the rejection of seven votes cast in favour of PDM candidate Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani proved to be a game changer.

He was of the view that the presiding officer had wrongly rejected the votes. He further said that when PDM leaders asked for the ballot papers’ record, the request was not accepted. Bukhari said that the PPP had challenged the presiding officer’s decision under Article 199. He pointed out that there was the same column for stamping on the candidate’s name.

“Actually it is voter’s intention that needs to be looked into,” he argued. On March 12, a controversy was witnessed during the Senate chairman elections, when the PTI-backed candidate Sadiq Sanjrani once again defied the odds to become Senate chairman yet again after a knife-edge poll. Sanjrani received 48 votes while his opponent and Pakistan Democratic Movement Yosuf Raza Gilani could get 42 votes.

There was a controversy in the vote counting as seven of Gilani’s votes have been rejected as the voters failed to stamp in the box correctly. Farooq H Naek, the representative of Gilani, challenged the decision, however, the presiding officer rejected his objection and said the grieved party can challenge his decision in the Election Tribunal.

The presiding officer said the rules were clearly mentioned to stamp the vote in front of the candidate’s box and the voters who stamped on the name of the candidate have been rejected. NNI