Ishrat, Jilani to be PTI nominees for caretaker PM

Imran’s party finalises four names for caretaker CM in Punjab

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will submit two nominees for the post of caretaker prime minister and four for caretaker chief minister in Punjab, according to party sources.

Former State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) governor Dr Ishrat Hussain and former chief justice of Supreme Court Tassaduq Hussain Jilani are the PTI picks for the post of caretaker prime minister, the sources told The Express Tribune.

While the nominees for caretaker chief minister in Punjab include former caretaker finance minister Dr Salman Shah, former SBP governor Shahid Hafeez Kardar, former commerce minister Abdul Razak Dawood and former director-general Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Tariq Masood Khosa, according to the party sources.

However, according to a senior PTI leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Dawood’s name was never discussed as party’s nominee for the post of caretaker CM during internal party meetings.

“It came at a later stage and we were just informed that he will be one of the three nominees for the slot,” he said, adding that the names of Jilani and Hussain had been finalised after detailed discussion within the party.



Hussain was one among three nominees of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government for interim prime minister in 2013.

“Given the fact the PPP will have no objection to the nomination of Hussain as opposition’s unanimous candidate for prime minister,” said the PTI leader.

Jilani served as 21st chief justice of Pakistan from December 2013 to July 2014. After the imposition of emergency by former military dictator Pervez Mushrraf in November 2007, Jilani was among the senior apex court judges who had refused to take fresh oath.

According to rules, interim PM is to be selected through mutual consultations between prime minister and leader of the opposition in National Assembly.

The PTI has, meanwhile, tasked Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi to submit the names of its nominees and discuss them with Khursheed Shah, the Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly, who will then forward opposition’s consensus nominees to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

Punjab CM picks

The PTI has named former bureaucrat Tariq Masood Khosa, who has held important positions including those of secretary Narcotics and DG FIA, for the position of caretaker chief minister in Punjab. Khosa is the brother of Justice Asif Saeed Khosa of the Supreme Court.



During the PPP’s tenure that ended in 2013, the apex court had appointed Khosa as head of the commission that probed the Memogate case. Being the DG FIA, Khosa had investigated the Mumbai attacks case, and the human trafficking case, involving PTI leader Firdous Ashiq Awan.

Abdul Razak Dawood, another PTI nominee, is an industrialist who served as commerce minister in Pervez Musharraf’s cabinet from 1999 to 2002.

Another nominee Dr Salman Shah has served as caretaker finance minister and later advisor to former prime minister Shaukat Aziz on finance and economic affairs while Shahid Hafeez Kardar headed the SBP for a brief period of 11 months in 2010-11.
Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mehmood-ur-Rashid of the PTI had told The Express Tribune a few days back that he was busy consulting rest of the opposition parties in Punjab over the PTI nominees for caretaker CM, and once the names were finalised, he would hold talks with Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif.