SIC members walkout of Punjab Assembly session for CM election

Lahore: The session of the Punjab Assembly for the election of the Chief Minister of Punjab started during which the members of Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) walked out of the session and boycotted.

The meeting of the Punjab Assembly for the election of Chief Minister Punjab is being held Monday under the chairmanship of the newly elected Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan.

When the assembly session started, the voting procedure was explained by the speaker and it was said that the doors of the assembly will be closed after a 5-minute interval. However, soon after the speaker's announcement, the members of the SIC Council started making noise. On which Speaker Malik Ahmed Khan said that whatever happens will be according to the constitution, however, despite this, the members of the SIC continued the noise and walked out of the assembly for not letting their nominated candidate of Chief Minister Rana Aftab to talk in the assembly.

Later, Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan assigned the task of persuading the members of the SIC to Khalil Tahir, Imran Nazir, Salman Rafique, Samiullah, Sohail Shaukat and Ali Gillani, however, the members of SIC did not return to the House and maintained the walkout. Upon which the Speaker started the assembly proceedings in the absence of the members and first the names of the women members were called for voting. The SIC decided to convert the assembly walkout into a boycott.

Maryam Nawaz is the nominated candidate of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) for the Chief Minister of Punjab, while Rana Aftab has been nominated by the SIC for the Chief Minister of Punjab.

Before coming to the Punjab Assembly, PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz visited the graves of her grandfather, grandmother and mother in Jati Umrah and then left for the assembly.

On the other hand, Rana Aftab, the SIC leader said that the dictatorship is still continuing, the people have given a decision in our favor, the cycle of political revenge should end, if the House is not complete, how will the process continue.

Rana Aftab claimed that if the voting takes place, ‘I will become the Chief Minister, if there was a secret poll today, everything would have come before you’.

It should be noted that in the 327-member house of the Punjab Assembly, PML-N has the support of 224 members, while the number required to become the chief minister is 186. On the other hand, the SIC has the support of 103 members. The Chief Minister of Punjab will be elected through a show of heads.

Before the meeting of the Punjab Assembly, there was a meeting of the joint parliamentary party of the PML-N and SIC separately.