PM Shehbaz Strongly Supports New Provinces, But Maryam Nawaz Opposes Division of Punjab: Hamid Mir
ISLAMABAD: Senior journalist Hamid Mir has claimed that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is a strong supporter of creating new provinces, while Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz does not favor dividing Punjab. He said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has also instructed party ministers not to publicly discuss the issue.
Speaking on Geo News, Hamid Mir said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had privately expressed strong support for the creation of new provinces and had assured stakeholders of his backing in closed-door meetings.
He said several PML-N federal ministers also support the idea. According to Mir, Ahsan Iqbal favors the creation of at least 19 new provinces, while Owais Leghari supports the creation of two provinces in Punjab.
However, Mir said Nawaz Sharif had asked party leaders and ministers to refrain from speaking publicly on the issue because Maryam Nawaz, who is the chief minister of Punjab, does not support the division of the province.
“This is where a conflict has emerged between the PML-N manifesto and the Punjab government’s policy,” Hamid Mir said.
He added that while Shehbaz Sharif supports new provinces, Maryam Nawaz, as chief minister of Punjab, does not want the province to be divided. According to Mir, the party is adopting the position of the Pakistan Peoples Party, saying that just as the PPP opposes the division of Sindh, the PML-N also does not want Punjab to be divided.
Mir said that although political leaders privately acknowledge that they have no objection to creating new administrative units, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif would eventually have to discuss the matter publicly as well.
Meanwhile, journalist Muneeb Farooq, in his vlog, discussed the political prospects of constitutional amendments required for the creation of new provinces.
He said that based on the PML-N’s support for the constitutional amendment extending General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s tenure during Imran Khan’s government, he had previously analyzed that if the PPP did not support the creation of new provinces, a two-thirds majority could not be achieved without support from another major political force.
Farooq said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) could potentially support such an amendment if it saw a political benefit in doing so. He dismissed speculation that Imran Khan had been offered any deal, saying that no one had so far sought cooperation from Khan on the issue.
In another vlog, Farooq said those seeking to create new provincial units were moving rapidly, but a constitutional amendment would be required if the role of existing provincial assemblies in the process were to be changed.
He referred to Article 239(4) of the Constitution, saying that under the existing constitutional framework, the creation of a new province or alteration involving a province requires approval through a two-thirds majority of the relevant provincial assembly.
Farooq said the PPP currently has a strong majority in the Sindh Assembly and has opposed the division of Sindh. Therefore, he argued, any attempt to remove or alter the provincial assembly’s role in the process would require a constitutional amendment.
The debate over the creation of new provinces has therefore emerged as a politically sensitive issue, with differences reportedly existing within the PML-N and between federal and provincial positions.
