The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has ordered the retention of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as PML-Q president and has also deferred the timeline for holding intraparty elections.
Earlier on Friday, the Election Commission of Pakistan scheduled Ch Shujaat Hussain’s plea for an immediate hearing, in which he sought the commission’s decision to postpone intraparty elections in the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid.
Today, a four-member ECP bench led by Chief Sikandar Sultan Raja will hear Ch Shujaat’s petition challenging the PML-intraparty Q’s election.
In a meeting on July 28, the PML-Q Central Working Committee removed Ch Shujaat as party chief and planned an intraparty poll on August 10.
Ch Shujaat has contested the decision of the PML-Q CWC to organize intraparty elections.
According to the CWC, the PML-Q chairman was unable to make ‘prudent’ party decisions due to his ill health, and he was scheming against and manipulating the party for his personal gain.
The PML-Q committee meeting presided by Senator Kamil Ali Agha, determined to organize new elections for senior party positions within 10 days. It formed a five-member election committee and named Jahangir A Jhoja, the interim president of the party’s attorneys’ section, as the election commissioner. Mr. Jhoja would also be in charge of the party’s organizational and administrative affairs until the intraparty elections.
The feud inside the party reached a climax when Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, as party head, addressed a letter to PML-Q lawmakers in Punjab advising them not to vote for his cousin, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, in the province’s recent chief minister’s election.
Initially, Elahi was pronounced ineligible by the then-Punjab Assembly Speaker’s judgment, which threw out the votes of ten PML-Q MPAs based on a letter submitted by Ch Shujaat. Elahi eventually appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the parliamentary party, not the party chairman, was responsible for giving voting instructions.
