Addressing a press conference ahead of the no-trust vote on April 3, Bilawal thanked Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) for joining hands with the opposition and deciding to support them to oust Imran Khan as Prime Minister.
Khan on Wednesday effectively lost majority in Parliament after MQM-P jumped ship.
The embattled PM Khan needs 172 votes in the lower house of 342 to foil the Opposition’s bid to topple him. However, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islama Fazl (JUI-F), said that the Opposition has the support of 175 lawmakers and the prime minister should resign.
It was also announced that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president and leader of the opposition Shehbaz Sharif would be next PM after removal of 69-year-old Khan.
Here are 10 things to know about Shehbaz Sharif
* He is the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif — three-time elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.
* He served as the Chief Minister of Pakistan Punjab three times (1997, 2008 and 2013), making him the longest-serving CM of Pakistan Punjab.
* After a military coup deposed the government in 1999, Shehbaz along with his family, spent years in self-exile in Saudi Arabia, returning to Pakistan in 2007.
* In March 2018, he was elected as the PML-N chief after his brother Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from holding office. He was nominated as the Leader of the Opposition after the 2018 election.
* In December 2019, the National Accountability Bureau froze 23 properties belonging to Shehbaz and his son, Hamza Sharif, accusing them of money laundering.
* On 28 September, 2020, NAB arrested Shehbaz at Lahore High Court and indicted him on charges of money laundering. He was incarcerated pending trial. On 14 April 2021, Lahore High Court released him on bail in money laundering reference.
* Shehbaz was born on September 23, 1951 to a Punjabi-speaking Kashmiri family of Mian clan in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Shehbaz’s father, Muhammad Sharif, was an industrialist whose family emigrated from Anantnag in Kashmir for business, and eventually settled in the village of Jati Umra in Amritsar. After Partition, his parents migrated from Amritsar to Lahore.
* He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Government College University, Lahore.
* After graduation, he joined his family owned Ittefaq Group and got elected president of Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry in 1985.
* Shehbaz jointly owns Ittefaq Group, a multimillion-dollar steel conglomerate.
(With inputs from agencies)
