LAHORE:Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hamza Shehbaz was elected as 21st Chief Minister of the Punjab with 197 votes after the members Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) boycotted and attacking deputy speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari while PML-Q leader Chaudhry Parvez Elahi also injured amid clash between the two sides.
Members from the PML-N, PPP, PTI’s Jahangir Khan Tareen and Abdul Aleem Khan groups attended the session. The Tareen and Aleem groups decided to support Hamza.
Earlier, a number of ruling alliance MPAs attacked the Deputy Speaker and threw lotas at him, forcing him to leave the house following members of both sides manhandled each other in which Speaker Punjab Assembly Chaudhry Parvez Elahi was injured as him one of the arm was reportedly broken.
However, police and security men rushed to the scene, controlled the situation and ensured voting for the election of Punjab chief minister. The police also apprehended five PTI members.
The ruling MPAs were of the view that Dost Mazari has sold his conscience to opposition despite getting elected on PTI ticket and is therefore ineligible to preside over the Punjab Assembly session.
The PTI lawmakers set off a ruckus in the Assembly as they brought “lotas” to the House and started chanting “lota, lota (turncoats)”, lashing out at dissident PTI members, who parted ways with the party and decided to support the Opposition.
The injured, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, has said he did well for the Sharif family and now has received the reward for it today as his arm is broken. He said while talking to the media. Elahi said he took care of Hamza Shehbaz during the exile of the Sharif family in the Musharraf regime but today they had brought an end to oppression.
Elahi strongly criticized police for entering into the house as saying they did not have th authority to do so. He said that Inspector General Police Rao Sardar Ali was responsible for this. Elahi said the IGP should be sent behind bars for one month over this incident.
Earlier, Pervaiz Elahi and PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry both criticized the LHC decision which restored powers of Dost Mazari and ordered him to conduct CM Punjab’s election. Both were of the view that the court doesn’t hold the right to interfere in the matters of legislature.
A two-judge Lahore High Court (LHC) bench had upheld a single bench’s April 13 verdict that restored the Punjab Assembly deputy speaker’s powers which were withdrawn last week and asked him to hold the polls for the Punjab CM slot on April 16.
PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz has said that seeing their clear defeat, the goons of PTI indulged in rowdyism urging people to get rid of these violent characters once for all, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
In a series of tweet, Maryam wrote: “The gang of thugs whose name is PTI, seeing their defeat in Punjab, started their bullying tactics again. No matter how much hooliganism, they would indulge in, God willing Punjab will get its right today. The development which had been snatched by Punjab in 2018, the province will take it back. Chief Minister Hamza Shahbaz, Insha Allah!”