Pakistan PM's son becomes chief minister of Punjab province

By Shakir Husain NEW DELHI, April 17 (Bernama) -- Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's son Hamza Shehbaz has become the new chief minister of Punjab as the provincial assembly witnessed a ruckus by lawmakers. Punjab is home to more than half of Pakistan's 220 million population and holds the key to federal power in Islamabad. Hamza, 47, a leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, secured 197 votes in the 371-member house in Saturday's chief ministership contest. The vote was boycotted by former prime minister Imran Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and its allies amid the chaos. Police entered the chamber after clashes broke out between the supporters of Hamza and his rival Chaudhry Parvez Elahi. Chaudhry Parvez was injured in the violence and the assembly's acting speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari was roughed up. Chaudhry Parvez's Pakistan Muslim League (Q) is allied with the PTI, which ruled Punjab before the power shift. PTI leader Usman Buzdar had resigned recently as Punjab's chief minister to let Chaudhry Parvez succeed him as they tried to save the coalition government amid reported defections. The change of government in Punjab is linked to Pakistan's ongoing wider power tussle in which Imran was ousted as prime minister on the night of April 9 in a dramatic Supreme Court-directed vote of no-confidence. Imran is now busy rallying popular support across the nation and has demanded immediate elections. The former prime minister addressed a huge gathering in Pakistan's most populous city and business hub Karachi on Saturday night and repeated the charge that his government was ousted in a United States-engineered regime change operation with local collusion. -- BERNAMA