Aseefa Bhutto, the youngest daughter of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and slain Premier Benazir Bhutto, has taken a plunge into the country’s politics by filing her candidacy for the bypoll at a National Assembly seat in Sindh province vacated by her father.

Aseefa, 31, has been active in politics for some time but was kept away from parliamentary politics by her father Zardari, also the co-chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), until an opportune time. Following her father’s inauguration as the 14th President of Pakistan, Aseefa is poised to become the First Lady, a position traditionally held by the spouse of the President.

Aseefa submitted nomination papers on Sunday in the byelection for the NA-207 constituency of Shaheed Benzirabad district in Sindh . Zardari won the seat but vacated it after becoming President.

Aseefa has a striking resemblance to her mother, who was killed in a bombing and suicide attack in 2007 in Rawalpindi. Aseefa was then a teenager and suffered emotionally as compared to her two elder siblings, Bakhtawar and Bilawal.

Bilawal, a former foreign minister, is the chairperson of the PPP. It may be the reason that she was driven closer to her father, who, after becoming President, designated her the First Lady. Although her brother had already taken over the party, Aseefa is considered a natural heir to her mother, who took over the party after her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged in 1979 because of alleged involvement in a murder case.