LAHORE: In response to the Punjabi police’s effort to detain its previous nominee, Mian Aslam Iqbal, the PTI has announced Rana Aftab Ahmed Khan as the party’s new chief minister candidate.
PTI secretary general Hammad Azhar stated on social media on Saturday that Mian Aslam was Imran Khan’s (the party’s founding chairman) nominee for Punjab chief minister, but the leadership had changed course because the “entire” province’s police force had surrounded the provincial assembly to apprehend him.
He was making reference to Mian Aslam’s choice to show up for the Punjab Assembly’s first meeting on Saturday.
The PTI leadership, he continued, had selected Rana Aftab as its new contender for the coveted position after consulting with Mian Aslam.
Mian Aslam was granted protective bail by the Peshawar High Court on Wednesday in 18 counts that were filed against him till March 4 in relation to the May 9 riots in Punjab and Islamabad of the previous year.
On the other hand, Mian Aslam is said to have avoided arrest that same day in Peshawar by dressing as a lawyer.
Mian Aslam managed to evade the Punjab police’s attempts to apprehend him and took sanctuary at the Speaker’s House in K-P.
A day later, Mian Aslam claimed that the Punjab police and bureaucracy were tearing apart the Constitution and the law in a post on X. “The Punjab police tried to kidnap me in Peshawar even after the Peshawar High Court granted me bail,” he continued.
The PHC objected to the Punjab police’s attempt to detain Mian Aslam in Peshawar a day earlier, even though the court had granted him protective bail. The PHC also instructed the chief of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa police force to make sure that the officials would face consequences if they attempted to detain him in the future.
Providing information about the newly nominated chief minister of Punjab, Azhar clarified that Rana Aftab was the youngest member of the provincial legislature and had been elected to the Punjab Assembly five times.
The acting head of the PTI in Punjab asserted that Form 45 showed the party had the support of 212 MPAs while the PML-N had the support of only 40 “true members.”
Azhar claimed that the remaining PML-N members in the provincial parliament were the result of the “rejected February 9 forgeries,” branding the party as a “democracy raider.”
In response, Marriyum Aurangzeb, the central spokeswoman for the PML-N, insisted that the Sunni Ittehad Council had made its first “U-turn” by altering its choice for the position of Punjab chief minister.
Speaking to the media outside the Punjab Assembly, she stated that on Sunday (today) the PML-N’s nominee for chief minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz, would unveil the province’s development roadmap and practical steps for the advancement of women.
Aurangzeb continued, saying that the PML-N has once again been given the position of prime minister and chief minister by the Almighty.Vertical home sub-4 and pak
