Peshawar
February 28, 2021
ISLAMABAD: A mutually beneficial ‘muk-muka’ (deal) has been amicably reached in the Senate elections from Punjab, with the parliamentary players securing exactly the number of seats as their numerical strengths in the provincial assembly.
The unopposed election of 11 senators forestalled every kind of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing. No bucks changed hands; no lobbying was needed to wean away the votes of the rivals in the electoral college; no complaints of the use of strong-arm methods emerged; and no allegations of the use of state machinery surfaced.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), that have been at each other’s throats for the past six years, voluntarily consented to this compromise. The accord saved both parties from the hard struggle of squeezing out seats according to the number of their members in the Punjab assembly.