Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Malik Ahmed Khan on Saturday was elected as a new speaker of the Punjab Assembly after securing 224 votes.
Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) candidate Ahmad Khan Bhachar bagged 96 votes, while two votes were rejected out of the total 322 ballots cast during the polling.
The Punjab Assembly session to elect the House’s speaker and deputy speaker kicked off this evening after a delay of one-and-a-half hours as the protests inside and outside the legislative marred the timely beginning of the meeting.
The second session of the newly-elected provincial assembly, presided over by outgoing Speaker Sibtain Khan, saw members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) chanting slogans against each other.
A heavy police force and prison vans were also present outside the assembly to ensure the maintenance of law and order during the assembly session.
Earlier, six MPAs, including Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leader Chaudhry Shafay Hussain and Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) Hafiz Farhat Abbas and Waseem Khan Badozai, and independent candidates Rai Murtaza Iqbal Khan, Fateh Khaliq, Tashakul Abbas Warraich, who were not present in the House’s inaugural session on Friday, took their oaths.
The sworn-in MPAs then marked their attendance in the register after the oath, following which the session was briefly adjourned for 20 minutes for the Maghrib prayer.
After this, the polling for the new speaker was conducted. As many as 327 MPA-elects cast their votes during the ballot.
Today, elections for the speaker and deputy speaker are being held via a secret ballot under Rules 9 and 10 of the Rules of Procedure of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab, 1997.
PML-N’s Malik Ahmad Khan and Malik Zaheer Iqbal Channer submitted their nomination papers for the slot of Punjab Assembly speaker and deputy speaker, respectively.
Meanwhile, SIC members Ahmad Khan Bhachar and Muhammad Moeenuddin Riaz Qureshi submitted their papers for the speaker and deputy speaker positions.
