The deputy speaker in the Punjab Assembly, Dost Muhammad Mazari, has declared Hamza Shehbaz winner of the chief minister election who bagged 178 votes against 186 of Chaudhry Pervez Elahi after rejecting 10 votes of the PML-Q citing a letter from the party head, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who barred his party MPAs from voting for the PTI candidate.
The crucial session faced a three-hour long delay due to last-minute political wheeling and dealing.
Going against the directives of Chaudhry Shujaat, all ten PML-Q lawmakers in the Punjab Assembly reportedly voted for Pervaiz Elahi in the chief minister election. However, Deputy Speaker Dost Mazari did not accept the votes of the PML-Q lawmakers.
“Hamza Shehbaz got 179 votes. PTI received 176 votes and PML-Q bagged 10 votes but I just received a letter from Chaudhry Shujaat,” said the deputy speaker while announcing the result of the CM election.
“As party president of PML-Q, I have directed my provincial members to vote for Hamza Shehbaz,” said the deputy speaker while reading from the letter received from Chaudhry Shujaat.
In line with the ruling of the Supreme Court verdict on Article 63-A related to the defection clause, the deputy speaker said he had rejected the votes of PML-Q lawmakers.
Speaking on the floor of the house, PTI leader Raja Basharat challenged the deputy speaker’s ruling, saying as custodian of the house he could not reject the lawmakers’ votes.
“Chaudhary Shujaat is not authorised to prevent members from voting… he does not have the authority to stop any member,” he said.
However, rejecting the objections of the PTI leader, the deputy speaker said he was performing his duties as per the orders of the Supreme Court.
The political heavy weights including PPP co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari had swung into action to make last-ditch effort to salvage CM Hamza-led provincial government earlier today.
PML-Q leader Moonis Elahi later told the media that party president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has refused to back the PTI candidate — his cousin Pervez Elahi — for the slot of Punjab chief minister.
“I’ve lost and so has Imran Khan… Zardari has won,” he was quoted by a section of media as saying.
“No video statement has been recorded… I went to meet him [Chaudhry Shujaat] but he refused to record the video,” he said while speaking to a local TV channel.
However, Pervez Elahi in a Twitter post said that in view of the Article 63 of the Constitution, there is no importance of Chaudhry Shujaat’s directives to the lawmakers and only the parliamentary leader can issue instructions to the party members.PML-Q leader Chaudhry Hussain Elahi said in a tweet that all ten provincial assembly lawmakers decided in the parliamentary meeting that Pervez Elahi will be the party’s candidate for Punjab chief minister.
“If Deputy Speaker does not allow these votes on basis of Ch Shujaat letter he will [be] violating the Constitution of Pakistan and his oath!,” he added.
PML-N leader Ataullah Tarar on the other hand termed the letter of the PML-Q parliamentary meeting ‘fake’, saying election campaign had been going on for weeks “but you held party meeting only yesterday”.
“Legality of this letter side; this is an afterthought. Election campaign was going on since weeks and you held parl[iamnetary] party meeting yesterday??? No news or footage was given? What a shame. Total lies and a fake a letter, typical Moonis Elahi,” he said while responding to Moonis’ tweet.
