LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Hamza Shehbaz Friday secured Punjab chief ministership slot in the provincial assembly election by defeating joint candidate of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid’s (PML-Q) candidate Parvez Elahi amid dramatic support by Chaudhry Shujaat.
The crucial session for the election of Punjab’s chief minister begun after a delay of almost three hours. Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker announced that he had received a letter from PML-Q Chairperson Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain directing party lawmakers to vote for PML-N’s candidate Hamza Shehbaz.
Citing Article 63A of the Constitution, he rejected 10 votes cast by PML-Q members following which Hamza received 179 votes and Elahi got 176 votes. The deputy speaker stated that he was discarding the votes of the PML-Q lawmakers as they had voted in favour of Parvez Elahi, against the directions of their chairperson. He announced that Hamza Shehbaz was therefore elected as the chief minister of Punjab.
Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari read out a letter written by PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain requesting the members of his party to vote for Hamza Shahbaz. Therefore, the Deputy Speaker said the lawmakers violated the order of Chaudhry Shujaat and rejected all the votes cast by the members of the Muslim League (Q).
At the beginning of the session, Raja Sagheer who was elected from PP-7 Rawalpindi’s constituency took oath in the house, after that PML-N leader Khalil Tahir Sindhu objected to the presence of PTI candidates Zain Qureshi and Shabbir Gujjar in the assembly and said that since Zain had not resigned from the membership of the National Assembly, he was not eligible to vote in the provincial assembly.
Meanwhile, the party added that since there was a case pending against Gujjar with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), he cannot cast his vote either. However, PTI leader Raja Basharat, in Gujjar’s defence, said that the ECP had sent a notification in this regard and according to that, Gujjar is eligible to cast his vote. While Deputy Speaker also rejected his objections and allowed both candidates to vote in the election.