Pakistan: PM Modi congratulates Shehbaz Sharif
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: In the first response from India after the February 8 General Elections in Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday congratulated Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, a day after he took oath as the 27th Prime Minister of the South Asian nation facing an existential crisis on multiple fronts.
In his very first address after taking oath, Shehbaz had raked up the issue of Kashmir along with that of Palestine.
Shehbaz, the younger brother of three-time PM Nawaz Sharif, took the oath for a second time as the PM on Monday, nearly a month after an election marred by controversy and accusations of large-scale rigging and manipulations by the all-powerful Pakistan Army.
He was administered the oath of office by President Arif Alvi in Islamabad, a day after the National Assembly ‘elected’ him as the new PM amid protests by lawmakers aligned with jailed former PM Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi.
“Congratulations to @CMShehbaz on being sworn in as the Prime Minister of Pakistan,” PM Modi posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), after Shehbaz Sharif’s ‘appointment’ on Sunday.
Earlier this month, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) with 75 seats, and Pakistan Peoples’ Party, which won 54 seats, agreed to form an uneasy coalition government even as independent candidates backed by Imran Khan gained the most (93) seats in the Lower House with 266 elected seats.
Imran Khan has alleged that the new government, led by Shehbaz Sharif, is a breach of the people’s mandate and that the elections were rigged on an unprecedented scale to make the PML(N)-PPP coalition cobble together a victory for forming the government.
Shehbaz Sharif, 72 was the PM from April 2022 to August 2023, when the country’s parliament was dissolved ahead of the February 8 elections.
