ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday reserved its verdict on a petition filed by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain against his removal as president of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) through an intra-party election by his party last month.

A five-member bench of the ECP headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja heard the petition.

In his argument, Umar Aslam, the counsel for Hussain, said that a person ceased to be the party president only in two cases: either he quits or dies.

He said that the ECP could listen to the party president’s case since it falls under its jurisdiction.

“Only the central working committee is authorised to take disciplinary action against any office-bearer of the party…but in this particular case, the committee hasn’t been formed. In such a situation, how party’s election commission came into existence,” he questioned.

He said that the defendants led by Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi have occupied the party’s Punjab office, saying “we’re being denied access to party’s record by the same group”.

He went on to say that the defendants had said that 83 members of the PML-Q had attended the committee’s meeting which had decided to remove Chaudhry Shujaat from his post.

“But the question is whether the dissident group submitted to the ECP the list of these 83 members,” he asked.

Talking to media outside the ECP, Chaudhry Salik Hussain, the son of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, said that his father would accept the verdict of the ECP.

“Our doors are always open for everyone as nothing is final in politics. And no one should make anything a matter of ego,” he added.

Hussain approached the ECP after he was removed as the party president and Tariq Bashir Cheema as secretary general – through an intra-party election – after the duo opposed Pervaiz Elahi’s nomination as a joint candidate of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the PML-Q in last month’s election for chief minister Punjab.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022