MUZAFFARABAD: Sardar Amer Altaf, recently elected ruling PML-N legislator from Sudhnoti, clinched victory in election for the office of deputy speaker of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly on Tuesday.

The deputy speaker office had fallen vacant last year following the resignation of ruling party’s Sardar Farooq Ahmed Tahir, who was inducted in the cabinet as minister for law.

Mr Altaf bagged 34 out of the 44 votes polled in the 49-member house, defeating Shazia Akbar of opposition PPP, who secured eight votes.

The combined opposition, comprising PPP, PTI, Muslim Conference (MC), Jammu Kashmir People’s Party and an independent lawmaker, has 11 votes.

The opposition members who did not turn up for voting were Aamir Ghaffar Lone of PPP, Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan of MC and independently elected MLA Ali Shan Soni.

The ruling PML-N has 36 votes while the two Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) members are its ally. Both JI members were elected by majority PML-N party against one each reserved seat for technocrats and women.

Sources claimed that the ruling PML-N didn’t even ask for the JI votes, adding to their already prevailing discontentment on some issues, which was why they had put a cross on their ballot papers.

The session was presided over by speaker Shah Ghulam Qadir, who did not cast his vote. Speaker’s son Asad Aleem Shah also abstained due to some personal reasons.

Later, Mr Altaf was administered oath of office by Mr Qadir.

Mr Altaf had clinched victory in a by-election in LA-18, Poonch-Sudhnoti-II on October 21 last year by defeating former speaker Sardar Ghulam Sadiq of PPP.

The seat had fallen vacant on Aug 27 last year due to the death of Mr Altaf’s grandfather, Khan Bahadar Khan, who was the then senior adviser to the AJK prime minister.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2019