Islamabad, April 4: The opposition in Pakistan’s National Assembly continued the proceedings despite its dissolution by President Dr Arif Alvi and completed the voting process on the no-trust resolution against Prime Minister Imran Khan, declaring it successful with 197 votes, Dawn reported on Monday. The result of the voting was announced by PML-N leader and former speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, who presided over the sitting as a member of the panel of chairpersons that had been announced by Speaker Asad Qaiser at the start of the assembly session on March 25.
The opposition declared the proceedings “legal and valid” even though it ran the session without the support of the secretariat staff and even without the sound system. Apart from the main opposition, the members of parties formally allied with the PTI government and the 22 dissidents of the PTI voted in favour of the resolution that was formally presented by Leader of the Opposition and PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif as soon as the treasury members left the house after it was prorogued by Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri through a ruling disallowing the voting on the no-confidence resolution. In a surprise move Chaudhry Salik Hussain, the son of PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, also supported the opposition’s resolution, thus confirming the rift in Chaudhrys’ family. Besides him, PML-Q’s Tariq Bashir Cheema also voted against Imran Khan. UNI A
