PTI forward bloc leader elected GB chief minister

GILGIT: PTI forward bloc leader Gulbar Khan was Thursday elected unopposed as Gilgit-Baltistan’s new chief minister.

Gulbar received 19 votes of the 20 members present in the House, as three other contenders withdrew their nomination papers. An independent lawmaker, Nawaz Khan Naji, abstained from voting, with Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PMLN) parliamentarians backing the new chief minister, reports Geo News.

All 11 members of the PTI’s ‘like-minded group’ boycotted the polling, claiming rigging. The election for the coveted post was triggered after the region’s top court disqualified former chief minister Khalid Khursheed for holding a fake degree. Following his removal from office, the PTI divided into the forward bloc and like-minded, which boycotted the election.

The newly-elected chief minister hails from the Diamer district. When GB’s first assembly elections took place in 2009, Gulbar Khan contested on the JUI’s ticket and got elected to parliament. The PPP, which formed a coalition government in the region, brought him on as the health minister. In 2015, he could not become a member of the assembly after a PMLN candidate defeated him. In 2020, he was elected on PTI’s ticket and became the health minister once again under the leadership of ex-CM Khursheed. Following Khursheed’s removal, he formed the PTI’s forward bloc and got elected as the chief minister on July 13.

Reacting to the chief minister’s election, the PTI called it a ‘broad daylight robbery’ of public mandate and said it was the darkest day for democracy. The PTI spokesman said depriving a party of the right to rule with 22 seats in the 33-member house was a slap in the face of democracy and the Constitution. He said Pakistan’s democratic and constitutional identity was badly dented in the world due to this insult of the public mandate, adding that unscrupulous criminal elements in the guise of politics facilitated a shameful invasion of people’s right to vote and democracy. The conspiracies hatched behind closed rooms, he alleged, turned the minority into a majority in the GB like these elements did in AJK.

In a related development, the newly-elected chief Gilgit-Baltistan, Gulbar Khan, is allegedly wanted by the Mardan police in a fake cheque case, sources said.

The sources added that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator Faisal Saleem-ur-Rehman, a resident of Par Hoti, had on 5th of November 2014 submitted an application with the local police. He had alleged that he had a money dispute with Gulbar Khan involving Rs2.4 million.

He had alleged that Gulbar Khan gave him a bank cheque. Faisal said that when he deposited the cheque in his bank account, it was not encashed due to insufficient amounts in the account of Gulbar Khan.

Later, the police conducted an inquiry and on September 9, 2015, the official of Par Hoti police station registered a case against Gulbar Khan under Section 489 F.

The sources added that Gulbar Khan was allegedly wanted by the Mardan police in this first information report. They added that the local court had also allegedly issued a warrant for the arrest of Gulbar Khan.