ISLAMABAD (Kashmir English): The election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly is set to take place tomorrow, August 25.
The notification issued by the AJK Legislative Assembly Secretariat today stated that a session of the Assembly will be held tomorrow at 2 pm under the chairmanship of outgoing Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar.
As per the schedule issued today, nomination papers for the offices of Speaker and Deputy Speaker will be submitted from 10am to 11am on August 25.
The scrutiny of nomination papers will begin at 11:15am, followed by the publication of the list of candidates at 11:30am, the notification stated.
The deadline for the withdrawal of nomination papers has been fixed at 11:45 am, while the final list of candidates will be issued at 12 noon.
Later, the election for the Speaker of the House will be held at 2pm, and the election for the Deputy Speaker will take place at 3pm on the same day.
Tariq Farooq nominated: Sources
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif has nominated Chaudhry Tariq Farooq for the post of Speaker of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, sources said on Monday.
According to sources, Secretary General PML-N AJK Tariq Farooq will also assume the post of Acting President of AJK until the presidential election.
Sources further added that the final approval of the names of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker will be announced on Tuesday, tomorrow. For this, PML-N has called a meeting of its parliamentary party for tomorrow at 9 am.
Earlier today, the 46 newly elected members of the AJK Legislative Assembly took the oath of office administered by outgoing Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar.
The members then signed the oath register in the order of their constituencies. With the oath, the constitutional and parliamentary activities of the newly elected assembly have formally begun.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has emerged as the largest party in the House with 32 members, while the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) holds 14 seats.
However, seven seats remain vacant as elections have yet to be held in the constituencies of Poonch and Sudhnoti districts.
Reserved seats election
The swearing-in ceremony was held after the election of eight reserved seats, where PML-N bagged six while the PPP won two seats.
Among the five seats reserved for women, PML-N’s Sehrish Qamar, Maryam Zaman and Maryam Idrees were elected, while the PPP’s Farzana Yaqoob and Zubia Khurshid secured the remaining two seats.
PPP’s Zubia Khurshid and PML-N candidate Riffat Abid had secured five votes each on the women’s reserved seat, following which Zubia Khurshid was declared successful through a draw.
Furthermore, PML-N’s Pir Mazhar Saeed Shah was elected to the Ulema-i-Din or Mashaikh seat, while PML-N candidate Barrister Iftikhar Gilani secured the Technocrat seat.
PML-N’s Chaudhry Abdul Rehman Arain was elected unopposed to the seat reserved for Overseas Kashmiris. He was the only candidate to have submitted his nomination papers for the seat.
