File photo of Maryam Nawaz.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has once again landed in trouble, as the Session Court has been moved against her for donning a police uniform while attending a passing-out parade on April 25, according to ARY News.

In his plea, the plaintiff claimed that Ms. Nawaz’s wearing of a police official’s uniform was “unlawful.” The plea stated that no one is permitted to wear the official state institution outfit. The petitioner said that despite Ms. Nawaz’s plea to the police, no action was taken against her.

The petitioner begged the judge to provide instructions to file a complaint against Ms. Nawaz, the Chief Minister of Punjab. The case’s hearing was postponed by the Court until April 29, as per ARY News.

Wearing the uniform, Punjab Chief Minister (CM) MS. Nawaz, notably participated in a police passing-out parade in Lahore. The Chief Minister of Punjab bestowed a guard of honour and presented awards to the Police Training College’s outstanding achievers, reported ARY News.

Notably, Ms. Nawaz, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) nominee, had made history by becoming Punjab’s first female Chief Minister. She secured 220 votes in the election, triumphing over her opponent, Rana Aftab Ahmad of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), who received zero votes due to a boycott by SIC members.

The Punjab Assembly session, presided over by newly-elected Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan, witnessed opposition members from the Sunni Ittehad Council boycotting the proceedings. Speaker Mr. Khan declared that only elections for the Chief Minister would take place, and no lawmakers were permitted to speak during the session, according to ARY News.

Lahore:

Maryam Nawaz, the Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, on Friday said that Chinese nationals living in Pakistan get “resentful” when they are asked to follow security protocols. Her remarks came a week after five Chinese engineers were killed in a suicide bombing in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Maryam, the daughter of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who became the first-ever woman chief minister of a province in Pakistan, while addressing her maiden Apex Committee meeting here said “the Chinese living here do not want to follow security discipline”.

“They are resentful when they are asked to follow security protocols. They don’t want to come under any discipline as they fret over it,” she added.

The meeting was also attended by Corps Commander Lahore Lt Gen Syed Aamer Raza and other senior military officers.

Maryam, however, expressed her government’s resolve to provide fool-proof security to the Chinese nationals working on development projects in the Punjab province. The meeting also condemned the killing of Chinese engineers in Bisham.

Five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver were killed in a suicide bombing last week while travelling between Islamabad and a hydroelectric dam construction site in Dasu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The bus was attacked in Bisham city of Shangla district.

Maryam said terrorism has taken the shape of difficult warfare. “Terrorists got digitalised and we need to be ahead of them on such platforms. Besides, terrorists have the latest weapons and technology. They have the US weapons which they got in Afghanistan. The weapons coming from Afghanistan are a big challenge for the law enforcement agencies,” she said.

The 50-year-old Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party leader added that the youth are also being brainwashed and recruited by terrorists. “And social media is one of the major tools being used for the purpose,” Maryam said.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday directed all the security agencies to ensure fool-proof security arrangements for the Chinese nationals working on various projects in the country.

According to a statement, the prime minister said he had decided to “personally review the meetings with respect to the overall security of the country, especially the security of the Chinese citizens”.

Sharif said the war against the menace of terrorism will continue till its complete eradication from the country.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Maryam Nawaz.
| Photo Credit: AP

“The selection of Maryam Nawaz as the Chief Minister of the Punjab province is a milestone in Pakistani politics,” the U.S. has said, asserting that it looks forward to cooperating with Islamabad on integrating women more fully into the country’s political life.

Maryam, the 50-year-old daughter of three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, took oath as the first-ever woman Chief Minister of Pakistan’s most populous and politically crucial Punjab province last week.

“Her [Maryam Nawaz Sharif] selection as Chief Minister is a milestone in Pakistani politics,” State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at his daily news conference on March 4.

Maryam is considered the political heir to 74-year-old Nawaz Sharif, the three-time former Prime Minister.

“We look forward to cooperating with Pakistan more broadly on integrating women more fully into the country’s political life, in the economy, including through the U.S.-Pakistan Women’s Council, civil society, and other decision-making spaces,” he said.

“An inclusive Pakistan makes for a strong, prosperous country which all Pakistanis benefit from, and so we are always pleased when we see cracks in the glass ceiling anywhere in the world,” Mr. Miller said in response to a question.

However, he refrained from commenting on the election of the new Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif.

On Monday, Shehbaz (72) assumed the cash-strapped country’s reins for a second time, nearly a month after an inconclusive election marred by allegations of vote rigging.

“I’m not going to speak with respect to the new Prime Minister, but as we’ve said before, we value our longstanding partnership with Pakistan and have always viewed a strong, prosperous, and democratic Pakistan as critical to U.S.-Pakistan interests, and our engagement with new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his government will continue to focus on advancing these shared interests,” Mr. Miller said.

Senior PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, on February- 26, became the first-ever woman Chief Minister of a province in Pakistan when she was elected to head the Punjab province, describing it as an ‘honour’ for every woman in the country.

Maryam, the 50-year-old senior vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, won the chief ministerial elections amidst a walkout by lawmakers of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

In her maiden speech at the provincial legislature, Maryam thanked God, her father, Nawaz Sharif, uncle Shehbaz Sharif and the lawmakers who voted for her.

Maryam said that she was happy to sit in the seat where her father used to sit. “My father trained me how to run the office,” Maryam, considered the political heir of Nawaz Sharif, said.

“Today, every woman of the province is proud to see a woman Chief Minister,” she said and hoped that the tradition of female leadership would continue in the future as well.

The PML-N leader said she had seen hard times like imprisonment but was thankful to her opponents for making her strong.

“But I will not seek revenge,” she said, indirectly referring to former Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and former Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar.

Maryam received 220 votes and won the chief ministerial elections for the politically crucial Punjab province, home to 120 million people. She defeated Rana Aftab of the PTI-backed SIC, who received no votes as his party boycotted the election.

“The votes have been counted according to which Maryam has obtained 220 votes, and SIC candidate Rana Aftab Aftab secured zero votes,” said newly-elected Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan while presiding over the session.

To win the Chief Minister’s election, a candidate needs to win the backing of the majority, which is 187 members in the House that currently has 327 seats, according to Geo News. The newly-elected Chief Minister, Maryam, enjoyed the support of the majority in the House.

The PTI-backed SIC’s 103 members have taken oath from its total 113 lawmakers in the Punjab Assembly. Ms. Maryam was backed by PML-N allies, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), and the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP).

The walkout by at least 103 SIC members— including the PTI-backed independent lawmakers— was staged after the SIC nominee for Chief Minister, Mr. Aftab, was not permitted to speak at the point of order.

“In today’s session, only elections will be held for the Chief Minister. You cannot speak in today’s session,” Speaker Khan told the SIC candidate as he tried to speak up.

The speaker eventually moved forward with the proceedings to elect a new leader of the House after efforts to bring back the boycotting lawmakers went in vain, according to Dawn newspaper.

Before boycotting the session, the opposition chanted slogans of “Queen of Mandate Thieves” as the PTI claimed that Maryam had lost his seat with a margin of over 800 votes in the February 8 polls besides the party’s over 100 Punjab Assembly seats that had been stolen. It decried that the irony is a “defeated” candidate has become Chief Minister.

Taking a swipe at the walkout by the SIC lawmakers, Maryam said, “Today, I am upset that the respectable members of the opposition benches are not present here […] I wish they would be a part of the political and democratic process.” She said that despite several challenges and difficulties, her party members and the PML-N never left the ground empty.

“If the opposition was present today, and if they had protested during my speech, I would have been happy,” she said.

Meanwhile, the PTI nominee for the chief ministerial post, Mr. Aftab, said, “It seems as if dictatorship persists even today,” according to the report.

Speaking to the media in Lahore as the Punjab Assembly voted for the new leader of the House, Mr. Aftab said, “I am a political worker […] the way I had to pass from there [the assembly], this is shameful for me, and it is also a moment of reflection for all politicians.” He added that the PTI wanted justice as per the law and Constitution to take “this manoeuvred democracy forward”.

Maryam paid a visit to her mother’s grave at Jati Umra before going to the Punjab Assembly, where the election for the post of Chief Minister took place.

In a post on X, the PML-N said Maryam also visited the graves of her paternal grandparents.

“For the first time in the history of our nation, a woman will become the CM Punjab. Maryam Nawaz Sharif will be the first woman to take the oath as CM Punjab!” the PML-N said in a post on X earlier in the day.

Senior PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah, while speaking to the media outside the Punjab Assembly, has said that Maryam will carry her father, Nawaz Sharif, and uncle Shehbaz Sharif’s legacy as Punjab Chief Minister, Geo News reported.

Terming the need to address prevailing political instability as the “biggest challenge”, Mr. Sanaullah said that everyone, including the bureaucracy, would cooperate with Maryam during her term as the Chief Minister.

Maryam is considered the political heir of the 74-year-old PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, who surprisingly nominated his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, 72, as his party’s prime ministerial candidate.

The PML-N clinched both speaker and deputy speaker offices in the Punjab Assembly.

In a marathon session of the Punjab Assembly on February 24, the lawmakers elected PML-N leader Malik Ahmad Khan as the custodian of the House and Zaheer Iqbal Channar as his deputy.

The PML-N won 137 seats, while independents backed by 71-year-old Khan’s PTI party won 113 in the Punjab Assembly. Separately, 20-odd independents, not PTI-backed, have already joined the PML-N.

The PTI-backed independent candidates have joined the SIC to get reserved seats for women and minorities besides saving their elected members from being forced to change their loyalty by the military establishment.

However, the SIC may not get reserved seats for women and minorities, leaving the PML-N with a simple majority in Punjab.