LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Wasiq Qayyum Abbasi was elected unopposed the Deputy Speaker of the Punjab Assembly on Saturday after no one from the opposition side filed nomination papers.

The Punjab Assembly deputy speaker’s seat fell vacant after Dost Muhammad Mazari was removed through a no-confidence motion submitted by the PTI.

Punjab Assembly Saturday morning passed a no-confidence motion against Dost Muhammad Mazari to remove him from the office of deputy speaker.

Imran Khan and other party leaders severely criticised Mazari for his ruling, which deprived Pervaiz Elahi of becoming the chief minister after he rejected 10 votes from the PML-Q.

Punjab Assembly Secretary Inayatullah Lak while talking to the media said that opposition member Pir Ashraf Rasool received four nomination papers from his office, but the opposition parties did not submit any nomination papers. Nomination papers of any member have not been submitted in the office of the Secretary of the Assembly.

He said that according to the Rule 9 (4) of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab, they waited till 5 pm, later the documents were checked at 5:10 pm.

Lak said members of the treasury benches Syed Yawar Abbas Bukhari, Chaudhry Adnan, Syed Samsam Bukhari, Momina Waheed, Nadeem Abbas Bara, Colonel Malik Muhammad Anwar, Malik Taimur Masood and other members of the Assembly came to the office of the Assembly Secretary along with Wasiq Qayyum Abbasi to submit the papers.

Earlier, PPP MPA Syed Ali Haider Gilani and PML-N MPA Khalil Tahir Sindhu while talking to media said that they are in the court due to the non-transparency of the secret ballot in the election of the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly and that is why they do not trust the election process of the Deputy Speaker.

According to the Assembly Secretariat, Wasiq Qayyum will take the oath in Punjab Assembly’s session to be held on Sunday (today) at 1:00 pm.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022