Lahore: Hamza Sharif, son of Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, took oath as the Chief Minister of Punjab province on Saturday. A day earlier, amidst dramatic developments, he was re-elected to the post by a margin of just three votes. The vice-president had rejected 10 important votes of his rival candidate. Hamza (47) was administered the oath by Punjab governor Baligur Rahman. The swearing-in ceremony took place at the ‘Governor House’ in Punjab. On the direction of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Punjab Assembly on Friday voted for the post of Chief Minister of Punjab.
Hamza was declared the winner of the election. However, his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party does not have a majority in the assembly after the crucial by-elections held on July 17. Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Mohammad Majri rejected 10 votes of Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) candidate Chaudhry Parvez Elahi citing Article 63-A of the Constitution, after which Hamza was defeated in Punjab by a margin of just three votes. To be able to sit again in the chair of the Chief Minister. The PML-Q is an ally of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
In Punjab’s 368-member assembly, Hamza’s party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) got 179 votes while Elahi’s party got 176 votes. Elahi’s PML-Q’s 10 votes were not counted on the grounds that she had violated the orders of her party chief, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. Mazari said party chief Hussain had instructed PML-Q members to vote for Hamza instead of Elahi.
Mazari said, “I gave the decision to reject 10 votes of PML-Q because its chief Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain wrote a letter to me saying that his party MLAs should not have voted for the PTI-PMLQ candidate. I spoke to Shujaat over the phone and he confirmed that it was mentioned in his letter. He said Hamza regained the chief minister’s post of Punjab province by three votes. However, the PTI-PMLQ legislators opposed the Deputy Speaker’s decision. This is the second time that Hamza has defeated Elahi for the post of Chief Minister of Punjab.
The last time he had won was on April 16, but there was a delay of several days in administering the oath to him as the then governor Omar Sarfaraz Cheema refused to administer the oath to him. He was later administered the oath on 30 April by the President of the National Assembly, Raja Pervez Ashraf, under the directions of the Lahore High Court. Following Mazari’s decision to overrule the votes of 10 PML-Q members, PTI said it would move the Supreme Court to challenge the decision.
Elahi said he would challenge the decision in the Supreme Court as the vice-president had violated the court’s order. Earlier, PTI chairman Khan had warned that Sri Lanka-like situation would arise in the country if the government machinery was used to reverse the mandate. At the same time, Maryam Nawaz, daughter of PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, said what her party did on Friday was a “tit-to-tit” reply to Khan’s party. Maryam tweeted, “PML-N has not forgotten the treatment meted out to her. Now the rules of the game will be the same for everyone else the PML-N knows how to play it better.”
