KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nehal Hashmi is scheduled to take oath as the 35th governor of Sindh today during a ceremony at the Governor House in Karachi.
The oath-taking ceremony will be held at 4pm and will be administered by the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court. Following the ceremony, Hashmi will officially assume his responsibilities as the new governor of the province.
Nehal Hashmi, a lawyer and politician based in Karachi, previously served as a member of the Senate of Pakistan from March 2015 until February 2018. Born on January 28, 1960, he started practising law in the late 1980s and specialises in criminal and constitutional matters.
During his student years, he founded the All Pakistan Youth League and later entered active politics in the 1990s. He joined the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in 1992 and served as an adviser on law, justice and human rights to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif between 1997 and 1999.
Throughout his legal career, Hashmi has handled several notable cases, including legal matters involving Nawaz Sharif before the National Accountability Bureau as well as proceedings connected to the Murtaza Bhutto case.
He served as the PML-N president for Karachi in 2012 and was appointed the party’s general secretary in Sindh in August 2014. In 2015, he was elected to the Senate on a PML-N ticket and remained active in highlighting civic and public issues in Karachi.
Earlier, President Asif Ali Zardari approved his appointment as the new governor of Sindh on the advice of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, replacing Kamran Tessori. The approval was granted under Articles 48 and 101 of the Constitution, and the president signed the commission formalising the appointment.
The prime minister had previously forwarded a summary to the president for approval and later met Hashmi to congratulate him on the nomination.
Meanwhile, outgoing governor Kamran Tessori expressed gratitude to the president, the prime minister and other officials for their cooperation during his tenure. He also expressed hope that the incoming governor would continue public welfare initiatives, particularly programmes aimed at supporting IT students in the province.
