LAHORE: Following nomination of three members each by the Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi and Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz Sharif, the Punjab Parliamentary Committee has been notified to discuss the name of caretaker Chief Minister.

The PML-N has recommended the names of Malik Ahmed Khan, Hassan Murtaza and Malik Nadeem Kamran for the committee while the PTI-PML-Q alliance has given the names of Raja Mohammad Basharat, Hashim Jawan Bakht and Mian Aslam Iqbal.

The parliamentary committee has been formed after failure of Chief Minister Parvez Elahi and opposition leader Hamza Shehbaz to develop consensus on the name for interim CM.

It may be noted that the government alliance recommended the names of serving bureaucrat Ahmed Nawaz Sukhera, ex-federal Health Minister Naseer Ahmed Khan and the former Chief Secretary Nasir Mahmood Khosa for the caretaker CM while the joint opposition named Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi and former bureaucrat Ahad Cheema for the post.

Earlier, Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman wrote a letter to Speaker Sibtain Khan to form a parliamentary committee. The letter says consequent to the fact that the Chef Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the outgoing Provincial Assembly of Punjab have not agreed on any person to be appointed as the caretaker Chief Minister within the stipulated time-frame in terms of Article 224(1A) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, you are hereby required to fulfil your obligation in the manner prescribed in Article 224A(2) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, under intimation to the undersigned.

The parliamentary committee will have three days to finalise a name for the post. If the parliamentary committee fails to pick a name for the interim CM post, both sides will send the names of their nominees to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The electoral body will announce the name of the caretaker CM within two days.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023