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Pakistan gets its first Sikh senator
Gurdeep Singh was elected to the upper house of parliament on a minority ticket
Gurdeep Singh joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in 2016. (Photo supplied)
Sikh community leaders are celebrating after Gurdeep Singh became the first Sikh to win election to Pakistan’s Senate.
Singh received 105 votes on March 3 to be elected to the upper house of parliament on a minority ticket. Senate members are elected for six-year terms.
Shahbaz Bhatti, the Catholic federal minister for minorities who was assassinated in March 2011, won approval for four Senate seats to be reserved for religious minorities.
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Peshawar
February 26, 2021
PESHAWAR: A number of candidates withdrew nomination papers on Thursday as the political parties finalised their contenders for the Senate elections from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to an official of the Election Commission of Pakistan, 16 candidates withdrew their nomination papers. There are now 25 candidates in the run from KP, including 11 for general seats, five each for the seats reserved for women and technocrats. Four contestants are flexing muscles for seats reserved for religious minorities.
Those who withdrew their papers for the general seats included former PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar, Dost Mohammad Mehsud who will now contest for the technocrat seat, PTI loyalist Najiullah Khattak, Nasrullah Wazir who is father of PTI MPA from South Waziristan, Naseerullah Wazir, Mohammad Rizwan, former MNA Hamidul Haq, Shakeel Afridi and Meena Khan Afridi. Most of them are from PTI and were hoping to get the party ticket to contest for the Senate sea