MUZAFFARABAD: Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir will be elected today before which an election will be held to elect the leader of the House.
According to details, the Election Commission has released the schedule for the election of the leader of the House. The process of submitting nomination papers has started from 9 am today and will continue till 11 am. The list of eligible candidates for the election of leader of the House will be posted at 12 noon today.
Former prime minister Barrister Sultan Mohammad, Azhar Sadiq, Sardar Tanveer, and Khawaja Farooq have entered the fray to become the leader of the House. Candidates for the leader of the House seat have been given the power to withdraw their nomination papers till 1 pm today. Polling will be held at 2 pm, with the PTI emerging as the largest force in the recent elections.
In the 53-member Legislative Assembly, the PTI is in a strong position with 32 members who can easily bring their Prime Minister to Azad Kashmir. Earlier, six newly elected members, including six women, took the oath of office.
Read more: PTI wins posts of speaker, deputy speaker in AJK legislative assembly
Sardar Atiq of the Muslim Conference and Javed Iqbal of the PPP could not take the oath. Azad Kashmir Assembly Speaker Ghulam Qadir administered oath to the newly elected members of the Assembly. Later, Chaudhry Anwar-ul-Haq of PTI was elected Speaker.
Senior PTI leader Chaudhry Anwar-ul-Haq won by a margin of 32 votes to 15 against the opposition candidate Faisal Mumtaz Rathore. Out of the 49 members who participated in the election, 2 votes were rejected.
After the speaker, the PTI also managed to bring in its deputy speaker. PTI candidate Chaudhry Riaz won with 32 votes against the opposition candidate Nisar Abbasi’s 15 votes and became the Deputy Speaker.
Earlier, the ruling PTI won three reserved seats for women in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly. After the general elections in the state of Azad Kashmir, elections were also held for reserved seats in the Legislative Assembly in which 3 women from PTI and 1 each from PPP and PML-N won. All three candidates were elected unopposed.
