MUZAFFARABAD: Amid noisy disturbance, the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly on Friday approved with a majority vote a resolution by treasury lawmakers expressing full confidence in the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan and terming the motion for vote of no-confidence against him aconspiracy to destabilise the country.

The resolution, which was jointly tabled by ministers Faheem Akhtar Rabbani, Azhar Sadiq, Ansar Abdali, Deevan Ali Chughtai and Chaudhry Mohammad Rasheed, was read out in the house by Mr Rasheed.

The house was being presided over by ruling party’s Chaudhry Rafique Nayyar as member of the panel of chairmen.

However, it triggered commotion as all opposition members stood up from their seats and started chanting slogans against it, maintaining that tabling a resolution in favour of a move that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had been termed as unconstitutional amounted to contempt of the court.

Notwithstanding the hullabaloo, the undeterred minister kept on reading the text of the resolution.

“This House believes that external forces want to weaken the country by removing Imran Khan from the office of the prime minister but he had thwarted their nefarious designs by taking a historic decision to go to the people’s court,” the resolution said.

It asserted that Mr Khan was not only the ambassador of Kashmiris but also their benefactor because he had raised voice to highlight the issue of Kashmir at the international level on the one hand and provided ample financial resources for AJK’s construction and development on the other.

While congratulating Mr Khan and his team on the successful convening of the OIC-FMC session in Islamabad, the resolution appreciated inclusion of Kashmir issue in OIC-FMC agenda, invitation to the Kashmiri leadership to attend the moot and organisation’s demand in a joint declaration for restoration of the pre- August 5, 2019 status of occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

It also termed the adoption of the UNGA resolution with regard to Islamophobia as a historic achievement of the PM Khan and said he was the only leader of the Muslim world who had succeeded in mobilising public opinion against Islamophobia.

Extending its full support to PM Khan, the resolution assured him of support of the people of AJK and their democratically elected legislature against internal and external conspiracies.

Interestingly, on Thursday PPP legislators Mian Abdul Waheed and Sardar Javaid Ayub had submitted a resolution in the assembly secretariat wherein they had denounced National Assembly’s deputy speaker Qasim Suri for his “unconstitutional move” but it was not part of the agenda on Friday.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2022