Daily Times

PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry said PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s ability to make decisions is “limited due to his illness” – after the former prime minister decided to not back PTI’s candidate for the Punjab chief minister, his own relative Pervez Elahi, a private TV channel reported.

It seemed like the PTI and PML-Q were going to win the CM Punjab election as they had the numbers, but at the last minute, Shujaat asked his party MPAs to cast their votes in Hamza Shahbaz’s favour. However, the lawmakers cast votes in favour of Elahi – the joint candidate of the PML-Q and PTI – and thus, in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion on Article 63A, Deputy Speaker Dost Mazari dismissed their votes. Elahi originally managed to receive 186 votes, but after the deputy speaker’s ruling, the PML-Q leader got only 176 votes, whereas Hamza received 179 votes. Following the result, Elahi challenged the ruling in the Supreme Court. Responding to the game-changing last-minute move, Fawad told journalists on Saturday that Shujaat’s thumb impressions ‘were taken on a blank paper’.

Lashing out at Mazari for rejecting the PML-Q votes, the PTI leader said that the deputy speaker “stole” the people’s mandate. “Senior legal experts believe that the deputy speaker’s ruling is against the Constitution,” he said, adding that the SC should summon Mazari under charges of contempt of court. The PTI leader hoped that the top court would provide them justice. Fawad said that the deputy speaker’s move was not in line with ethical values and he also violated the Constitution. “We [have now] moved the SC for justice,” the PTI leader said and urged the “powerful forces” not to “play” with the country. “Hamza is not an elected chief minister of Punjab,” he said.

Taking a jibe at PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, whose last-ditch effort paved the way for Hamza to retain the CM Punjab position, Fawad said that Pakistan cannot bear the brunt of the “politics of Zardari”.