LAHORE: The ongoing power game in Punjab took a new turn on Saturday when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif after a meeting, attended among others by his top legal aide, hinted at moving the Supreme Court against the restoration of Parvez Elahi as chief minister by the Lahore High Court (LHC) a day earlier.

In its Friday’s order, the LHC had suspended Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman’s order de-notifying the chief minister and restored Mr Elahi and his cabinet on assurance that the assembly will not be dissolved, at least until the next date of hearing — Jan 11.

“PM Shehbaz discussed challenging the LHC’s verdict in the apex court with Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar and other cabinet members, including Rana Sanaullah, Tariq Bashir Cheema, Malik Ahmad Khan and Attaullah Tarar at his Model Town residence,” a PML-N leader told Dawn after the meeting.

He said it was likely that the Pak­istan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition would challenge the LHC judgement in the Sup­reme Court in the coming week.

The premier was given a detailed briefing about the governor’s order de-notifying Mr Elahi and its subsequent suspension by the high court.

PML-N terms LHC’s order ‘flawed’, believes it will form govt in Punjab next month with allies’ help

“The meeting agreed that the LHC’s decision has certain ‘flaws’ in it and it should be challenged in the apex court,” he said, adding that CM Elahi would eventually have to take the vote of confidence as per the governor’s order.

“The PM was also told by one of the participants that in January the PML-N and its allied parties would manage to form their government in Punjab in case Mr Elahi fails to get the vote of confidence and a runoff election for the CM slot is held,” the PML-N leader said.

He pointed out that the purpose of PDM was to thwart Pak­istan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan’s plan to dissolve the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies “at least for the time being” and they have managed to achieve that. Further measures required in this regard will also be taken, he said.

Later, federal ministers Rana Sanaullah and Saad Rafique while speaking at a press conference confirmed that the federal ruling coalition was considering challenging the LHC’s verdict in the apex court.

“There are ‘flaws’ in the LHC’s decision to restore Mr Elahi and we may challenge it at an appropriate forum,” Mr Rafique said.

Referring to PTI’s politics, he regretted that PDM was not allowed to work and serve the masses by Imran Khan and ‘his facilitators’ since it came to power eight months ago. He reiterated the federal coalition’s stance that assemblies would complete their tenure and elections would not be held before that.

Call for suo motu notice Interior Minister Sanaullah urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of the LHC’s verdict.

“Complete relief has been given to Mr Elahi in the name of temporary relief. The SC should take suo motu notice of the ‘flaws’ in this [LHC’s] decision,” he claimed.

Mr Sanaullah said his party was ready to contest the elections in Punjab but before that the chief minister would have to take the trust vote.

“If CM Elahi dissolves the PA after securing the vote of confidence as per the governor’s advice we will go into polls in the province,” he said and claimed that the chief minister could not manage to obtain the vote of confidence as the PTI-PML-Q did not have enjoy the support of the required number of MPAs.

Interestingly, Railways Minister Rafique said the LHC decision might lead to “horse trading”.

It may be recalled that PTI senior leader Fawad Chaudhry has recently accused the PMLN-PPP of offering millions of rupees to PTI’s woman lawmakers to switch their loyalty to fail the chief minister in securing the required votes during the trust vote polling.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2022