LAHORE: Backdoor contacts between the PPP and the PML-N are reported to have played a role in the former’s decision to hold Senate and general elections ahead of the schedule.

Officials privy to the contacts said that Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan of the PPP and Senator Ishaq Dar of the PML-N played the main role in this connection. Their last meeting in which details were finalised was held on Tuesday, the sources told Dawn.

A PPP leader claimed the meetings between the two leaders focussed mainly on Senate polls.

According to him, both sides desired that their candidates for Senate seats were elected unopposed, like in the previous electoral exercise.

The step will help check “selling and buying of voters (members of national and provincial assemblies)” by the candidates.

The policy was followed in the 2009 Senate polls, but this time the three major political parties—the PPP, PML-N and the PML-Q—fear that some wealthy candidates, especially from the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf of Imran Khan, may try to make use of their coffers to ‘win over’ voters.

The PML-N leaders claim that holding early general elections is also part of the understanding reached between Mr Dar and Mr Ahsan.

They said that the interlocutors had also been given the mandate to decide an interim set-up acceptable to the PML-N.