F.P. Report
KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Owais Qadir Shah was elected as the 12th Sindh Assembly speaker by a huge margin of votes on Sunday.
Outgoing speaker Agha Siraj Durrani announced the results, saying a total of 147 votes were cast, of which Shah received 111. Meanwhile, his opponent and MQM-P leader Sofia Shah got 36 votes.
As Owais Shah walked up to his seat, slogans of ‘Long Live Bhutto’ erupted in the house.
Later, outgoing speaker Siraj Durrani administered oath to the newly-elected speaker of the house. Owais Qadir Shah is the 12th speaker of the Sindh Assembly.
Syed Awais Qadir Shah, the newly elected speaker, was elected to the provincial assembly from PS-23, Sukkur after securing 69,266 votes, while GDA’s Inayatullah, who secured 21,137 votes, stood second.
The PPP, with 114 seats, is the largest parliamentary group in the Sindh Assembly.
MQM-P comes next with 36 members of the provincial assembly (MPAs) while the Sunni Ittehad Council has nine members, GDA 3, and Jamaat Islami one seat.
The PPP is comfortably placed in the House, and it doesn’t need any party’s support to get its chief minister elected.
Voting for deputy speaker underway
After having done with the election of the speakers, the MPAs are now busy casting votes for the seat of deputy speaker.
PPP’s Anthony Naveed and the MQM-P’s Rashid Khan are vying for the seat.
Earlier, the voting to elect a new speaker of the newly-elected Sindh Assembly was held with members exercised their right one by one.
PPP’s Syed Owais Qadir Shah is facing MQM-Pakistan’s Sofia Shah for the slot of speakership.
Outgoing speaker Agha Siraj Durrani announced that the nomination papers of Owais Qadir Shah and Sofia Shah had been received, adding these nominations were found valid and polling would be held by secret ballot. Durrani then called all the lawmakers in alphabetical order to collect the ballot papers and cast their votes.
Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani also announced the panel which will be responsible for running the session in absence of a speaker or deputy speaker. The members included Sharjeel Memon, Nida Khurho and Ali Khursheedi.
The assembly’s session began at 11:00 AM with speaker Agha Siraj Durrani in the chair.
PPP’s Awais Qadir and MQM-P’s Sofia Shah were the candidates for the seat of speaker while PPP’s Anthony Naveed and MQM-P’s Rashid Khan were for the seat of deputy speaker.
On the other hand, as per the schedule announced for the chief minister’s election due tomorrow, the candidates will be able to file their nomination papers between 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM.
Besides that, newly elected PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) MPAs are also expected to take oath of their office today.
As many as 163 newly-elected members of the 16th Sindh Assembly took oath on Saturday amid no show-up by the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), Jamaat-e-Islami, PTI-backed independents, and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl lawmakers.
Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani chaired the inaugural session of the provincial assembly and later administered the oath to the members.
The MPAs took oath in three languages – Urdu, Sindhi and English.
Earlier, there were reports that 151 MPAs-elect will be sworn in, but actually 163 members were administered the oath by the speaker with four others who were left out for different reasons.
There was a commotion in the gallery during the oath-taking. The speaker warned that troublemakers will be expelled from the gallery, saying “You can go to courts for relief. The whole of Sindh has extended support to the PPP and you must keep on trying if you are rejected by the masses.”
JUI workers reportedly staged a protest at Karachi’s Toll Plaza after they were not allowed to enter the megacity.
JUI-F Sindh Secretary General Allama Rashid Mahmood Soomro led the protest, saying the party workers wanted to stage a protest outside the provincial assembly. The protest has disrupted traffic flow on Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway.
The police also resorted to lathi-charge against protesters outside the assembly, arresting a number of activists including women.
Meanwhile, JUI workers staged a sit-in at Karsaz after they were not allowed to go to the Sindh Assembly to stage a protest.
Courtesy: 24 news
