PML-N MNA from Sheikhupura Rana Tanvir Hussain was on Thursday appointed as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

After the position fell vacant when Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif resigned from the post earlier this month, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser had today convened a meeting of the PAC today for the election of its new chairman.

In his resignation, submitted on November 18, a day before his departure to London with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the PML-N president had nominated Hussain as his replacement.

"I would like to propose that MNA Rana Tanvir may be considered for this position as decided by the joint opposition parties," Shehbaz wrote to the speaker in his brief resignation.

While the PML-N claimed that it had taken the other opposition parties on board on the nomination of Hussain as the new PAC chairman, a key office-bearer of PPP had said that they had not been consulted before his nomination.

However, today, Hussain was named for the position by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's (PTI) Sardar Nasrullah Khan Dreshak, PML-N Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed and PPP leader former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.

After his appointment, Hussain thanked his party and opposition party members. He promised that he would run PAC with neutrality.

The PAC has been non-functional as Shehbaz has not presided over its meeting for nearly six months. It was in May that Shehbaz, who was on a private visit to the UK, had first announced his decision to quit PAC's chairmanship, a position he had secured after prolonged wrangling between the government and the opposition parties.

Shehbaz had been elected as PAC chairman unopposed on December 22 last year after Prime Minister Imran Khan finally surrendered before the opposition’s demand in the wake of their threats to withdraw from all the National Assembly committees.