Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman administered oath to Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz, who won the election for the post yesterday against Pervez Elahi of Muslim League (Q).
The swearing-in ceremony took place early on Saturday morning at Governor House Punjab.
In the televised footage of the swearing-in ceremony, it was seen that immediately after Hamza Shehbaz took the oath, slogans of ‘Ek Zardari Sabpe Bhari’ were raised.
It should be noted that Hamza Shahbaz re-elected in the election of Chief Minister in a dramatic situation during the delayed session of the Punjab Assembly yesterday.
In the Chief Minister election, Pakistan Muslim League (N) candidate Hamza Shehbaz got 179 votes while Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Muslim League (Q) candidate Pervez Elahi got 186 votes.
However, the Deputy Speaker of the Provincial Assembly, Dost Mohammad Mazari, rejected all 10 votes of the (Q) League out of the votes received by Pervez Elahi as per the decision of the Supreme Court, after which Hamza Shehbaz was elected as the Chief Minister of Punjab with a margin of 3 votes.
Dost Muhammad Mazari, while reading the letter of Pakistan Muslim League (Q) chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, said that all the members of the Punjab Assembly belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League are instructed that the voting for the Chief Minister of Punjab is scheduled on July 22 and as the head of Pakistan Muslim League, I am giving orders to all the members of the provincial assembly to vote in favor of Hamza Shehbaz Sharif.
He said that a copy of this letter has been sent to all members of the party and according to this letter all the votes cast by Pakistan Muslim League (Q) are rejected as per the decision of the Supreme Court.
He said that Hafiz Amar Yasir, Shuja Nawaz, Muhammad Abdullah Waraich, Parvez Elahi, Muhammad Rizwan, Sajid Ahmed Khan, Ehsanullah Chaudhry, Muhammad Afzal, Basma Chaudhry and Khadija Umar are the members whose votes were not counted.
On which both PTI and Muslim League (Q) had announced to challenge the controversial decision of Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari to declare Hamza Shahbaz as the elected Chief Minister of Punjab and late at night on behalf of Q League Supreme Court Lahore Registry.
An application was also filed. This is the second time that Hamza has defeated Parvez Elahi in the contest of Chief Minister of Punjab.
The last time he won on April 16, the then Governor Umar Sarfraz Cheema refused to administer oath to him, delaying his swearing-in for several days, after which National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez finally took over.
Raja Ashraf had administered oath to him on April 30 as directed by the Lahore High Court.