MUZAFFARABAD: The election for a new prime minister for Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), which was set to be held on Monday, was put off after a session of the AJK Assembly was adjourned till tomorrow.
The assembly session was set to begin at 11am today but was delayed till 3:30pm. It was presided over by Speaker Riaz Ahmad, who adjourned the session till 11am tomorrow without conducting the election.
The election comes a week after PTI's Sardar Tanveer Ilyas was disqualified as the region's premier for contempt of court.
Despite the PTI holding majority in the AJK Legislative Assembly, its path to secure a candidate for the premier's post — who is loyal to party chief Imran Khan — may get difficult due to the divide among its own lawmakers.
Rebelling against his own party, AJK President Barrister Sultan Mehmood has formed a forward bloc in the assembly, which the sources said supports Khan's arch rivals Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
However, PML-N's regional president Shah Ghulam Qadir told Daily Jang that as per a “power-sharing formula” their alliance was with the PPP.
“If the candidate for PM was from PPP then we would have been bound to vote for him,” explained Qadir. He added that the PPP did not contact the party when it was negotiating with the forward bloc and neither did the latter contact them.
“If the situation remains like this then PML-N, with its seven votes, will make its own decision,” said the PML-N leader.
However, sources shared that after seeing Qadir’s reaction AJK President Chaudhry reached out to the PML-N to seek support for the forward bloc candidate.
Last week, in a major setback to PTI, AJK High Court disqualified Sardar Tanveer Ilyas for contempt of court.
The decision of the high court came after Ilyas was summoned to AJK's supreme court and high court for using a "threatening tone" in one of his speeches.
The court declared Ilyas ineligible from holding any public office and asked AJK's Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Abdul Rasheed Sulehria to hold polls for a new prime minister.
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