ISLAMABAD: A key opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), on Thursday removed party president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain from his post citing “health grounds,” days after the veteran politician opposed a candidate backed by PML-Q ally former premier Imran Khan in a provincial assembly vote for chief minister.
On July 23, Khan’s PTI party was sidelined in a key vote to determine whether the province’s sitting chief minister — Hamza Shahbaz, the son of the country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif— enjoyed the backing of the majority of lawmakers in the local parliament.
Shahbaz initially retained his post in a blow to Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and its allies had hoped to form the new provincial government in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, with PML-Q’s Chaudhry Parvez Elahi as the chief minister. However, the Supreme Court this week overturned the vote, handing control of the country’s most populous province to Elahi.
On July 17, the bloc had won 15 out of 20 seats that were up for grabs in the 371-member provincial assembly.
On Thursday, PML-Q Senator Kamil Ali Agha said the party’s Central Working Committee (CWC) held a meeting to pass a number of key resolutions, one of which was to strip Hussain of the president’s post, citing health reasons.
“All members have unanimously decided that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s health is affecting his decisions [as president of PML-Q],” Agha said during a news briefing. “Hence, he should be removed from the president of the party’s post.”
Agha also announced that the party had removed key PML-Q leader and former federal minister Tariq Bashir Cheema as secretary-general for hatching “conspiracies” against the party and using it for his personal benefit. Cheema has openly opposed PML-Q's alliance with Khan.
The PML-Q said it would hold elections in the coming days to appoint new leaders to the posts.
Elahi, a key PML-Q leader, was nominated by ex-PM Khan’s party and the PML-Q’s parliamentary party head as their candidate for the Punjab chief minister’s election but party president Hussain wrote a letter to the deputy speaker of the Punjab Assembly, the presiding officer of the election, saying he had directed all PML-Q legislators to vote for Hamza Shahbaz instead. Elahi and Hussain are also cousins.
All 10 PML-Q lawmakers, however, sided with Elahi and voted for him during the elections.
The deputy speaker subsequently declared the votes invalid, saying the legislators had voted against the party line. Hamza Shahbaz was thus elected as chief minister.
However, a Supreme Court verdict eventually overturned the deputy speaker’s ruling and Elahi took oath as CM earlier this week.
