In a typically turbulent session that took place during the early hours of Thursday, Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi was able to secure a vote of confidence from the Punjab Assembly after the opposition left, saying that the vote was “bulldozed” and “unconstitutional.”
Elahi won exactly the 186 votes needed to keep his job and one fewer than the 187 that PTI leaders had claimed to have before voting, according to Speaker Sibtain Khan, who presided over the meeting.
Before the vote, government and opposition members resumed fighting and jostled one another angrily in the area surrounding the speaker’s podium. The opposing MPAs quickly staged a boycott of the meeting and left.
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah criticised the procedures outside the Punjab Assembly as being “outside the rules and Constitution” and charged the speaker with “bulldozing” the vote of confidence.
According to Sanaullah and another PML-N leader, Ata Tarar, the court would review the vote of confidence. The PTI-PML-Q coalition, according to PTI Vice President Fawad Chaudhry and Mian Mahmoodur Rashid, has the support of 187 MPAs.
As the opposition reaffirmed its demand that Elahi seek the confidence vote, the PA session, which got underway about 5 p.m. on Wednesday, descended into turmoil for the third straight day.
The Lahore High Court (LHC) prolonged the “interim relief” of reinstalling Elahi as chief minister till January 12 hours before the session got underway. Elahi arrived at the PA shortly after 10 p.m., having met with PTI leader Imran Khan earlier in the day.
The figures for the confidence vote are finalised, according to Fawad.PTI-PML-Q combination, he claimed, was currently waiting for certain lawmakers who were travelling to the PA from various other cities throughout the province. When they arrived, he promised to hold the vote of confidence.
Fawad added that as the session was still going on, the vote could technically take place whenever it was convenient. He praised politicians for refusing to change their allegiances in exchange for bribery.
Fawad said that the party will withdraw its plea to the high court and provide the papers for dissolving the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies by tomorrow am if the confidence vote went on.
When asked what he felt about the potential for the confidence vote to not go through, Fawad responded, “God willing, we will take it. Only two MPAs are still at the airport.
Fawad also announced on Twitter that “number of 187 is complete” at the same time.
الحمدللہ 187 کا نمبر مکمل
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) January 11, 2023
