Islamabad (Staff Report): Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Asad Qaiser was elected as the speaker of National Assembly on Wednesday.
He defeated former opposition leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah of the Pakistan Peoples Party(PPP).
Asad Qaiser received 176 votes to be elected to the speakership, whereas Shah got 146 votes. A total of 330 votes were cast, out of which 322 were accepted and eight were rejected. Outgoing speaker Ayaz Sadiq administered the oath to the newly elected Speaker.
The newly elected Speaker is chairing the session the election for the slot of deputy speaker is underway.
Asad Qaiser, who previously served as speaker for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, won NA-18 Swabi I and PK-44 Swabi 2 constituencies on the PTI's ticket during the July 25 general election.
Qaiser belongs to the Swabi district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and graduated from the University of Peshawar before moving on to a career in education. He joined the PTI in 1996, prior to which he was a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing. In the PTI, he served as district president of Swabi and provincial president of the party.
For deputy speaker, PTI has named Qasim Suri while the joint opposition has nominated Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal leader Asad Mahmood.
Earlier, Khyber-Pakkhtunkhwa Assembly elected Mushtaq Ghani of PTI as its Speaker whereas Sindh Assembly re-elected former Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani.
Moreover, the newly-elected MPAs took oath of their office during the inaugural session of Punjab Assembly.
