KARACHI (Dunya News) – Syed Murad Ali Shah of the Pakistan Peoples Party was elected Sindh chief minister for the third time in a row.
Murad Ali Shah got 112 votes whereas MQM-P's Ali Khurshidi was polled 36 votes. The election proceedings were held amid sloganeering by the Jamaat-e-Islami members and independents backed by the PTI.
The Sindh Assembly comprises 168 members and 158 of them have taken oath.
Earlier, after election of the Punjab chief minister, voting to elect the new Sindh chief minister began in the provincial legislature.
Newly-elected Speaker Awais Qadir Shah presided over the session. The MPAs cast their votes by walking through the right side of the aisle for PPP’s Murad Ali Shah and the left for MQM-P’s Ali Khurshidi.
Former chief minister Murad Ali Shah was nominated for the position by the PPP. Ghulam Qadir Chandio, Saleh Shah and Naeem Kharal submitted the nomination papers on behalf of Murad Ali Shah. Shah has served as the chief minister from 2016 to 2018 and then 2018 to 2023.
On the other hand, MQM-P’s candidate Khurshidi, 38, has been elected to the Sindh Assembly from Orangi Town for the second consecutive time. A graduate of the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, he was elevated to the slot of party’s parliamentary leader during the last term.
Although the PPP is the largest party in the Sindh Assembly, the MQM-P decided to field its candidate as a formality "to not let Shah be elected unopposed," said a party spokesperson.
PTI and JI boycott
Meanwhile, in a statement, the PTI claimed that the PPP contacted its members seeking their support but it had decided to boycott the process. “We would boycott the election of Sindh CM,” said PTI Sindh chapter president Haleem Adil Sheikh.
“We don’t want to validate those who have become part of the legislative assembly after stealing the mandate of the people of Sindh. We would resist and take every step to regain our mandate through legal and democratic fight.”
A spokesman for the JI, which has one MPA in the assembly, also announced boycott of the process.