The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday reserved its verdict on a reference seeking the disqualification of 25 dissident MPAs of the PTI, who had voted for PML-N’s Hamza Shehbaz in the election for the Punjab chief minister. It will announce the verdict at 12pm today (Wednesday).
Last month, Hamza was elected Punjab chief minister, defeating PTI-PML-Q’s joint candidate, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi. Hamza had bagged 197 votes, including 25 from PTI dissidents. Elahi did not get any votes as the PTI and PML-Q lawmakers had walked out of the session.
Subsequently, after a declaration by the PTI, Elahi, who is also the Punjab Assembly speaker, had sent a reference against the dissident MPAs to the ECP, urging it to de-seat these lawmakers for defecting from the PTI by casting their votes in Hamza’s favour in violation of party directions.
The dissident lawmakers are Raja Sagheer Ahmed, Malik Ghulam Rasool Sangha, Saeed Akbar Khan, Mohammad Ajmal, Abdul Aleem Khan, Nazir Ahmed Chohan, Mohammad Amin Zulqernain, Malik Nauman Langrial, Mohammad Salman, Zawar Hussain Warraich, Nazir Ahmed Khan, Fida Hussain, Zahra Batool, Mohammad Tahir, Aisha Nawaz, Sajida Yousaf, Haroon Imran Gill, Uzma Kardar, Malik Asad Ali, Ijaz Masih, Mohammad Sabtain Raza, Mohsin Atta Khan While presenting his arguments, AGP Ausaf said that the court is looking into the presidential reference as an advisory authority and he would assist the court in line with the reference and legal questions.
He maintained that article 63(A) is a complete code.
“It has to be seen that if anything else needs to be added to the Article or not, and whether the dissidents’ vote can be counted,” the AGP stated.
