PM Modi congratulates Shehbaz Sharif on taking oath as Pakistan prime minister

PM Modi congratulates Shehbaz Sharif on taking oath as Pakistan prime minister
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday 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.