Constitution has no provision for two PMs: Qaim

Prays for Nawaz Sharif’s good health and early recovery

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that he had the honour of being a signatory to the 1973 Constitution and knew that there was no provision in the Constitution for “a stopgap arrangement for the PM’s slot. 

"In the Constitution there is no provision for two prime ministers, one under medical treatment abroad and the other running the government in the country.  

"The Constitution says there will be only one prime minister whether he is in the country or goes out of the country for visits or for medical treatment.” He said this while talking to the media after visiting the ailing philanthropist, Abdul Sattar Edhi. 

Syed Qaim Ali Shah, putting aside political differences with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said, "He is the elected prime minister of Pakistan. May God give him good health and an early recovery so that he could return to Pakistan at the earliest," he said.

Meanwhile, the media cell of Bilawal House has condemned some federal ministers for what it said trying to outclass each other over Bhutto-bashing and fielding themselves as a replacement of Nawaz Sharif when their leader was soon to undergo an open-heart surgery amid prayers for an early recovery by political allies and opponents alike, including PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Federal Ministers Pervaiz Rashid and Khawaja Saad Rafiq and state minister Abid Sher Ali targeted Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in their speeches on Saturday and portrayed themselves as if it were they who trained the fish how to swim and the birds how to fly. 

Among them included Pervaiz Rashid who had spent a large part of his life admiring and even flattering the Bhutto family, but now with the change of masters he had started playing the other side of the cassette, desperately hoping to be considered for the post of the prime minister.

The media cell said that Chairman Bilawal Bhutto had planned for a soft speech at a public meeting in Mirpur on Monday in the backdrop of the illness of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but “fake friends of the prime minister like these ministers don’t like to see him undergo the operation peacefully”.