PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday retained its Senate seat from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after its candidate Khurram Zeeshan secured a decisive victory over the joint opposition candidate.
\nThe by-election was held to fill the seat vacated after the disqualification of former PTI Senator Shibli Faraz.
\nAccording to unofficial results, PTI founding chairman Imran Khan nominee Zeeshan won with 91 votes, while the opposition\u2019s joint candidate Taj Muhammad Afridi, a businessman and political figure from Khyber district, received 45 votes. One vote was rejected, bringing the total polled votes to 137.
\nMembers of both the government and opposition parties participated in the polling process. Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, Speaker Babar Saleem Swati, and Leader of the Opposition Dr. Ibad were among those who cast their votes.
\nFollowing the announcement of results, PTI Provincial President Junaid Akbar said that the victory reaffirmed the assembly members\u2019 loyalty to the party\u2019s founder, Imran Khan.
\n\u201cThanks be to Allah Almighty that today again the members of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa proved that they stand with Imran Khan. This is the victory of PTI and democracy,\u201d he said.
\nSpeaking after his win, Khurram Zeeshan expressed gratitude to the PTI founder, declaring, \u201cOur ultimate goal is the release of Imran Khan. Today\u2019s victory is his victory.\u201d
\nAwami National Party (ANP) leader Nisar Baz commented that the outcome had been expected. \u201cEvery political party is free to make its own decisions. The ANP stands firmly against horse trading,\u201d he said, recalling that his party had always upheld the principle that whoever holds the mandate should elect their own Chief Minister.
\nChief Minister Sohail Afridi told reporters that after casting his vote, he would meet the PTI founder, and a cabinet statement would follow the meeting. \u201cAll our MPAs are standing with us like a rock,\u201d he added.
\nFormer Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur reiterated his call for judicial intervention, alleging that PTI\u2019s mandate had been \u201cstolen\u201d in earlier elections. \u201cThe judiciary has to protect the Constitution and come forward to save democracy,\u201d he said.
\nWith this victory, PTI successfully defended its Senate seat from KP, maintaining its dominant position in the provincial assembly.<\/p>\n
BY: JAVED KHAN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday retained its Senate seat from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after its candidate Khurram Zeeshan secured a decisive victory over the joint opposition candidate. The by-election was held to fill the seat vacated after the disqualification of former PTI Senator Shibli Faraz. According to unofficial results, PTI founding chairman Imran Khan nominee …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88892,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88873\/revisions\/88892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}