Pakistan’s ousted prime minister Imran Khan has said President Arif Alvi will soon ask Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to face a vote of confidence, as he stepped up efforts to press the government for snap polls.

“Shehbaz Sharif tested us in Punjab and now it’s his turn to prove whether he enjoys a majority in the National Assembly or not,” Khan made these remarks during a media interaction here and also in an interview on Hum News TV on Saturday. ?

“In the first, Shehbaz will be tested for a trust vote... and later we have other plans for him,” the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-ie-Insaf said, citing differences in the federal coalition as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) threatened to quit over the issue of local body polls in Karachi and Hyderabad. ?

President Alvi belongs to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the federal coalition is surviving on a very thin majority. MQM-P has seven members in the National Assembly, if it decides to quit the Shehbaz government cannot survive.

Khan has already said that he will sacrifice both Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies to push the federal government to announce snap polls. Khan says only fresh polls can steer the country out of the economic crisis.

The federal government, however, insists that general elections will be held after the completion of the tenure of the government in August. ?

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Punjab Assembly has automatically been dissolved on Saturday after the province's Governor Balighur Rehman refused to sign the summary sent by Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi to disband the provincial legislature.

Elahi, a joint candidate of ousted premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and the PML-Q, signed the dissolution of the Punjab Assembly summary hours after he managed to obtain a vote of confidence.

Imran Khan said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly will also be dissolved in a couple of days.

Khan was ousted from power in April last year through a vote of no-confidence. ?

Meanwhile, PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif presided over a party meeting in Lahore on Saturday evening through a video link from London where he has been living in a self-exile since November 2019.

"Nawaz Sharif has directed the party leaders and workers to start preparations for elections in Punjab. He also asked PM Shehbaz Sharif to constitute a parliamentary board for the award of tickets," PMLN spokesperson and Federal Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said.