PTI candidate Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi on Wednesday became the 13th Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir by bagging 33 votes after defeating the joint candidate of Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Chaudhry Latif Akbar who could secure  15 votes, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

In the 53-member AJK Legislative Assembly, only 27 votes were required for the formation of the government. 

The Muslim Conference also supported the PTI candidate Mr Qayyum Niazi. The MC has got only one seat in the AJK Legislative Assembly which was won by Sardar Atique Ahmad during the election. 

The PTI was emerged as the biggest party in the recently held AJK election after winning 26 seats. However, its assembly presence swelled when the majority party also grabbed the reserved seats. Now the PTI has got a clear majority with 32 seats in the assembly.

The PPP got 12 seats, PML-N grabbed 7 seats and Jammu Kashmir People’s Party and Muslim Conference bagged one seat each in the July 25 AJK elections. 

The situation turned ugly when the newly-elected speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Chaudhry Anwaarul Haq, also opted to vote, triggering a commotion in the house led by the Opposition parties.

Earlier, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf government finalized the name of Abdul Qayyum Niazi as the PTI candidate for the office of Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr Qayyum Niazi was elected as a member of the AJK Legislative Assembly after winning LA 18, Abbaspur seat. The 80% area of the constituency of Abbaspur is near the Line of Control. He belongs to Titry Note area near the LoC. 

The PTI candidate filed his nomination papers for the election of AJK Prime Minister. The election was held in the afternoon. 

Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry revealed the name of the PTI nominee for the office of AJK Prime Minister in his tweet on Wednesday morning.

He tweeted that after a long deliberation and careful analysis of the suggestions, Prime Minister and Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf Imran Khan has nominated newly-elected Member of Legislative Assembly Mr Qayyum Niazi for the office of Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir. 

Mr Fawad said that Mr Qayyum Niazi was a dynamic and real political activist whose heart beat with the workers. 

https://twitter.com/fawadchaudhry/status/1422803629573091330

In his haste to break the news, the information minister mistakenly wrote Mr Qayyum Niazi’s name as Qayyum Nizami. Soon after realizing his faux paus, he deleted his tweet and posted another tweet correcting his gaffe. This time he wrote the correct name of the nominated candidate i.e. Qayyum Niazi.

From where Niazi has emerged in AJK?

Mr Qayyum Niazi was proved to be a dark house as nobody guessed earlier that he could be the PTI choice for the AJK premier. In the presence of the most favoured candidates and stalwarts of PTI like Barrister Sultan Mehmood and Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, the nomination of Mr Niazi left everyone bewildered.

Even Prime Minister Imran Khan was not acquainted with him. In his public rally in Bagh days before the AJK election, Prime Minister Khan while reading out the names of PTI activists from a list, uttered the name of Abdul Qayyum Niazi and showed his bafflement saying where a ‘Niazi’ had emerged in the AJK! Then he jokingly said: “Niazis have spread all over the country.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5elD-dbcG-E

Mr Qayyum Niazi had remained a member of Muslim Conference. He was elected MLA in 2006 and then again in 2011. He left the Muslim Conference and joined the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf two years ago. He also served as minister for food in the AJK government.

Reporters Awais Kiyani and Safeer Raza