SRINAGAR: After securing most of the seats in the 53-member Muzaffarabad House, the ruling PTI in Pakistan has announced that Sardar Abdul Qayom Niazi will head the government. His nomination will be put to vote later this afternoon.
Qayoom Niazi emergence has pushed the warring factions aside. There were three PTI leaders in the race including billionaire Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, former prime minister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry and Azhar Sadiq. A section of Pakistani media reported that Sultan Mehmood has been offered to be the president of Pakistan administered Kashmir. Niazi is a lawmaker who was elected from Abbaspur in Poonch.
PTI had said the party will go by the decision of Imran Khan. The Pakistan Prime Minister, reports appearing in Pakistani media said, interviewed all the candidates from Muzaffarabad personally in the last few days.
Dawn newspaper reported last week that Khan interviewed five candidates — Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, Barrister Sultan Mehmood, Khawaja Farooq, Azhar Sadiq and Abdul Qayyum Niazi, last week.
“The prime minister is taking lengthy interviews of the candidates in which he is asking questions about the environment, tourism, economy, border issues and their future plans,” Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told Dawn.
In the 53-member Legislative Assembly at Muzaffarabad, the PTI has 32 berths including six elected members. It had won 26 seats in direct elections.
On Tuesday, the House at Muzaffarabad elected PTI’s Chaudhary Anwar-ul-Haq as Speaker and Chaudhry Riaz Gujjar as his Deputy. It will be elected its leader today in the afternoon, formally.
On July 30, India o rejected the elections in PaK saying the “cosmetic exercise” was nothing but an attempt by Pakistan to “camouflage its illegal occupation” and that it has lodged a strong protest over the issue. “The so-called elections in Indian Territory under the illegal occupation of Pakistan are nothing but an attempt by Pakistan to camouflage its illegal occupation and the material changes undertaken by it in these territories,” the foreign ministry spokesman was quoted saying in Delhi. It was responded by Pakistan to summon Indian charge d’affaires in Islamabad.
