Punjab Assembly (PA) Speaker Sibtain Khan adjourned on Tuesday the PA session till December 23 after Governor Balighur Rehman’s order directing Chief Minister Parvez Elahi to obtain a vote of confidence from the house.

A day earlier the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) submitted a no-confidence motion against the Punjab chief minister in a bid to thwart the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s plan to dissolve the assemblies in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on December 23.

Immediately after the PDM submitted the resolution the Punjab governor directed Elahi to seek a vote of confidence from the assembly on December 21.

However, in a ruling during today’s PA session, Sibtain said that the assembly was “already in session” and the governor could not summon any fresh session during the ongoing session of the provincial assembly as per the rules.

The ruling pointed out that the governor was empowered by Article 109 of the Constitution to summon or prorogue an assembly session, however, he had summoned the 41st assembly session but never prorogued it.

Punjab CM Elahi’s son Moonis Elahi, earlier in the day, said in a tweet that he and PTI chief Imran Khan finalised a strategy to dissolve the Punjab Assembly.

The PML-Q leader said that the PDM could not stop holding early elections in the country. “Imran Khan will sweep the next elections.”

‘CM Elahi has no other option but to take a vote of confidence’

PILDAT President Ahmad Bilal Mehboob speaking on Aaj News programme “Faisla Aap Ka” with host Asma Shirazi said that Chief Minister Punjab Pervez Elahi had no other option but to take a vote of confidence. “There is a chance that the matter in the case of Punjab at least could end up in the courts,” he added.

Mehboob said that the motion for no confidence against a CM “will make it impossible to dissolve the assembly till the time the motion is pending”.

Spokesperson and Special Assistant to Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Fahad Hussain, while speaking on the programme, said that once the assembly was dissolved, the constitution required a fresh election of the assembly within 90 days and there is no constitutional provision that elections to all assemblies were to be held simultaneously.

Hussain said that no name had been finalised for becoming a candidate of the PDM for Punjab chief minister’s slot. He said that the political role of the PML-Q has changed after the no-confidence motion.