In an interview with a private TV channel on Sunday, Tahir said that his 30 plus MPAs' group, which supports the PML (N) government in Punjab, would advise the Chief Minister of Punjab to dissolve the assembly to block the Senate polls, as Punjab represents 60 percent of the country.
It may be added that 50 members of the 100-seat Senate will retire in March next year, after completing their six-year tenure. The National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies are the electoral college of the Senate.
However, a prominent jurists, Senator S M Zafar, said that a chief minister can dissolve the assembly in his discretion, but by doing this he cannot stop the Senate elections. Commenting on Tahir's suggestion, Punjab Law Minister Sanaullah and Punjab Chief Minister's advisor Senator Pervez Rashid said that PML (N) was not considering dissolution of the Punjab Assembly before the Senate election. Pervez said that dissolution of the assembly was not feasible to stop the Senate election.
Political analysts say that PPP and its allies--PMQ, MQM, ANP, and PML (F)--are sure to gain absolute majority in the upper house after the March Senate elections as they have majority in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa, and Balochistan assemblies.
They say that PML (N), which rules the country's largest populated province, Punjab, with the support of the runaway 'unification group' is struggling to dislodge the PPP coalition government so that the scheduled Senate elections in March are postponed till the next general elections. Otherwise, PPP would continue to dominate the political scene, after the 2013 general elections. Analysts say the fact that Pakistan People's Party would be the biggest gainer in March 2012 Senate elections, and emerge as single largest party in Senate is disturbing the opposition parties.