ISLAMABAD, June 28: Pakistan Muslim League President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and People's Party Parliamentarians Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim will be contesting the election for the leader of the house slot in the special session of the National Assembly summoned on Tuesday for the specific purpose.

Mr Shujaat will be supported in the contest by the allied parties - the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the new PPP - and Fata MNAs while the component parties of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, including the Parliamentarians and the PML-N, will vote for Mr Fahim. The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal is likely to abstain.

According to a rough estimate, the ruling alliance has approximately 200 votes in the house of 340 as by-elections on two Karachi seats are yet to take place. On the other hand, Mr Fahim-led ARD is likely to show about 79 votes with 61 of the MMA MNAs abstaining from the voting process.

Mr Shujaat, after election as the leader of the house, will take oath of his office at 10am at President's House on Wednesday when the federal cabinet is also likely to be inducted.

Earlier, in the first ascertainment of the leader of the house in November 2002 the Parliamentarians had fielded Shah Mehmood Qureshi when Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the MMA had also contested with the support of PML-N and Imran Khan's Tehrik-i-Insaf.

Only Mr Shujaat and Mr Amin filed their papers with the secretary of the National Assembly on Monday before the deadline after their respective parliamentary groups nominated them for the top office of the government.

Mr Shujaat filed 18 nomination papers while Mr Fahim filed five. National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain supervised the scrutiny of the nomination papers after 3pm and found the papers of the two candidates in order.

During the process of papers' scrutiny, both sides raised various objections against each other's candidature on technical grounds but the speaker over-ruled these. The ARD objected to the candidature of Mr Shujaat on the grounds that he had been the director of a company which had been declared defaulter and whose loans were written off.

The speaker, however, ruled that any MNA, irrespective of any objection, was eligible to contest the election for the post of the leader of the house. According to PML sources, while all the ministers of Mr Zafarullah Jamali cabinet will be sworn in anew a few new ministers and ministers of state may also be inducted in the expanded cabinet.

While there is little or no chance of any change of portfolios of the ministerial slots previously held by the ministers, some reshuffling is not being ruled out. Earlier reports had suggested that Sheikh Rashid may volunteer himself to shift to some other ministry but the party sources claimed this had now been postponed at least for the time being.