Maryam Nawaz said PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had asked his party MPAs to cast their vote in favour of Hamza Shehbaz but they defied, so their votes were rejected in line with the law and the Constitution.
She said Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari was summoned by the Supreme Court on rejecting the PML-Q votes, but former deputy speaker of National Assembly Qasim Suri who had violated the Constitution by rejecting the no-confidence motion against the then prime minister Imran Khan was not summoned.
She said 25 lawmakers in the Punjab Assembly were de-seated by the court on a petition of the PTI and even their votes were not counted in the chief minister’s election held in April, adding “ninety-five per cent independent jurists said that it was tantamount to rewriting the Constitution . . . resultantly 25 PML-N members were given to the PTI . . . the PML-N votes go in minus and PTI’s in plus.”
She was of the view that the interpretation and definition of the Constitution should not vary on case to case basis.
Maryam Nawaz said PML-N chief Muhammad Nawaz Sharif was ousted in the Panama case from the premiership and even removed from the party’s top slot for holding an ‘Iqama,’ saying that the party head was ‘everything’ as he influenced running the party affairs and on voters.
“Now, when Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as the PML-Q head gives directives to party members, they come under question. But, when PTI chairman Imran Khan gives order it stands respectable,” she said, adding in the case of Chaudhry Shujaat, the parliamentary party stood superior, but in the PTI case, the party head was given weightage.
“There is no insult to any institution from outside as it happens from within,” she said.
Maryam Nawaz also quoted a saying of Khulfa-e-Rashdeen (First four Caliphs after Hazrat Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him) that a system of ‘Kufr’ (non-believing in Islam) could sustain in a society but not of the cruelty.