LAHORE: After the abrupt dissolution of the National Assembly, Punjab Assembly is also likely to be dissolved soon, reports citing sources revealed on Monday.
President Dr Arif Alvi dissolved the National Assembly on the advice of Imran Khan as the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government evaded the no-confidence motion against the prime minister.
Punjab Governor Omar Sarfaraz Cheema may ask former Punjab chief minister Usman Buzdar to take charge as caretaker chief minister, they added.
Meanwhile, the newly-appointed Punjab governor has been summoned to Islamabad where he will meet Khan today.
Sources close to the matter said the premier would guide Cheema over the strategy to be applied next amid the ongoing political turmoil.
Meanwhile, Khan also summoned Buzdar and PTI leader Mehmood ur-Rasheed to the federal capital.
In the meeting, they will discuss options to deal with the political crisis in Punjab, while the two leaders will brief the prime minister on the numbers game in Punjab.
Cheema has replaced Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar as the new Punjab governor, soon after the latter was sacked on Sunday morning.
The federal government sacked Sarwar as political tensions reached a pinnacle ahead of the vote on the no-trust motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Sources within the federal government said that Sarwar has been removed from his post on PML-Q leader Chaudhry Parvez Elahi’s request, for allegedly campaigning for Hamza Shahbaz in the election of the chief minister.
The ex-governor, addressing a press conference shortly after being sacked, said if there is a foreign conspiracy against the incumbent government then it was electing Buzdar as the chief minister.
Sarwar said that despite having several prominent candidates, including Fawad Chaudhry, Imran Khan decided to pick Usman Buzdar as the chief minister — as only he could move Punjab towards the goal of “Naya Pakistan”.
“All of PTI workers — in Punjab — and the federal ministers complained to us whether this was the Pakistan that we wanted where the chief secretary and inspector general are changed every three months,” the former governor said.
