Islamabad / new Delhi (TIP): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 5 congratulated Shehbaz Sharif on taking oath as the prime minister of Pakistan. Shehbaz Sharif on Monday took the oath as Prime Minister of Pakistan, assuming the cash-strapped country’s reins for a second time, nearly a month after an inconclusive election marred by allegations of vote rigging.
In the February 8 elections, Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party came second. Independent candidates backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won the most seats but failed to get a majority in Parliament.
On Sunday, Shehbaz, 72, comfortably won the election for premiership in the newly-elected Parliament. Shehbaz, the consensus candidate of the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), received 201 votes in the 336-member Parliament. His challenger Omar Ayub Khan of Khan’s PTI secured only 92 votes. President Arif Alvi administered the oath to Shehbaz, the 24th elected prime minister in a ceremony held at the Aiwan-i-Sadr, the presidential palace.
Shehbaz earlier served as prime minister of a coalition government from April 2022 to August 2023 before Parliament was dissolved to hold general elections last month. (TNS)