Advocate Khalid Khurshid elected CM Gilgit Baltistan

Advocate Khalid Khurshid elected new chief minister of Gilgit Baltistan, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Friday.

Khalid Khuresheed elected chief minister Gilgit Baltistan after getting 22 votes. His challenger, Amjad Advocate could manage only nine votes.

Prime Minister Imran Khan last week had finalised the name of Advocate Khalid Khurshid for Gilgit Baltistan chief minister after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf emerged as the major party in Gilgit Baltistan’s recently-held elections.

Khalid Khurshid contested 2020 Gilgit Baltistan Assembly election from constituency GBA-13 (Astore-I) on the ticket of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. He won the election by a margin of 1,719 votes over the runner-up Abdul Hameed Khan of Pakistan People’s Party. He garnered 4,836 votes while Abdul Hameed received 3,117 votes.

Khalid Khurshid joined the PTI in 2018 and Prime Minister Imran Khan selected Khalid Khurshid after holding consultations with PTI central and Gilgit Baltistan leadership.

Earlier, several names emerged for the coveted position of chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan. Four names – Fatehullah, Khalid Khurshid, Col R Obaidullah and Advocate Nazir Ahmed – were with Prime Minister Imran Khan for consideration. Among them, Khalid Khurshid got succeeded to win the confidence of the prime minister for the coveted job.

PTI leader Syed Amjad Ali Zaidi has been elected as the third speaker of Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly after securing 18 votes. The united opposition’s candidate Ghulam Ahmad got only eight votes. Six votes rejected (4 government and 2 opposition) due to inaccurate stamping. Outgoing GBLA speaker Fida Muhammad Nashad administered the oath to the newly elected Amjad Zaidi.

G-B went to the election on November 15 to elect 24 lawmakers of the legislative assembly on general seats. The voting was held on 23 seats as the election was delayed because of the death of a candidate. The by-poll to that seat was held last week.

According to the official results of the G-B election, the PTI gained a two-third majority with the joining of six independent lawmakers.

According to the official results, PTI had 22 seats in the 33-strong house. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) followed with 5 and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) 3. The Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and independent share one seat each.