ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto and Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz have demanded to probe a controversy of insufficient members during the vote of confidence for Prime Minister Imran Khan held in the National Assembly a day earlier.
During a press conference following a meeting with the Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz, Chairman Bilawal claimed, “Imran Khan was neither voluntarily voted as the prime minister by the Members of the Assembly, nor was he voluntarily voted for in this vote of confidence.”
“PM Imran ran a race alone and declared himself the winner, the PPP chairman said, adding: “But even this was manipulated.” “This allegation elevated by a member of the opposition present in the Assembly, that the number of votes announced does not match the number of people in attendance, must be probed,” Bilawal demanded.
Bilawal expressed optimism that the candidate fielded by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) for the Senate chairperson election will emerge victorious because the opposition parties will together challenge the PTI-led ruling coalition.
Elaborating, the PPP leader said contacts were being made with the senators elected in the March 3 polls to request them to vote for Yousuf Gilani in the Senate chairman election. He added that Gilani himself had already requested most of the senators to vote for him.
The Chaudhry brothers had been allies of the PPP government during Gilani’s tenure as the prime minister, saying he will go to their house and ask for their votes, Bilawal noted.
On this occasion, Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz said a probe must be conducted into the controversy of insufficient members during the vote of confidence.
He said the objectives of the PDM weren’t limited to a long march or a no-confidence motion in the short term. Instead, he said, it aimed to correct the destruction caused in this country in these past three years.
The people of Punjab faced problems such as a scarcity of medicines or mounds of trash lying on roads, while crop production of cotton, wheat and sugarcane was either at its lowest point or had appreciably reduced, he said.
Hamza said the PML-N and PPP had learned a lot from the Charter of Democracy, because of which “we moved forward with good practices for 12 years. There were errors but we learned from them.”
However, he lamented that in the last three years a culture of rowdiness, cursing and misbehavior had become widespread, citing piercing parliament sessions and yesterday’s incident outside the parliament his leaders were allegedly manhandled by PTI activists.
Hamza said the PDM member parties had accepted Yousuf Gilani as their combined candidate for the Senate chairman from the heart. He admired Gilani as a leader who had participated in politics for decades and earned his stature.
