After the Supreme Court verdict which declared Ch Pervaiz Elahi chief minister of Punjab, the provincial assembly gets ready to elect its speaker today (Friday) as a fierce competition is expected between PTI candidate Sibtain Khan and PML-N nominee Saiful Malook Khokhar, reported 24NewsHD TV channel. 

The Punjab Assembly session will be held at 4pm to elect the Speaker through a secret ballot. 

PTI’s Raja Basharat yesterday submitted the resolution for the election of new PA speaker. The candidates filed their nomination papers by 5:00 PM yeasterday.

PTI leader Farrukh Habib said that people had announced their decision in the Punjab by-election. He sounded confident that Sabtain would be elected as speaker of the provincial assembly today. 

The PML-N on Thursday finalized the name of member of Punjab Assembly Saiful Malook Khokhar as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz candidate for speaker of the provincial assembly. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif gave the final approval of Mr Khokhar.

He said all coalition parties members including the Pakistan People's Party would vote for PML-N’s candidate for the speaker. He directed the PDM to be more active during the election.

On the other hand, members of Punjab Assembly belonging to the ruling alliance of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), submitted a no-trust resolution against Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari in the provincial assembly on Thursday. 

PTI’s Raja Basharat submitted the resolution to the assembly’s secretariat on behalf of MPAs of the alliance, which was passed by a majority vote.   

Mazari had refused to count 10 PML-Q MPAs’ votes in the election for the Punjab chief minister held a few days ago on the pretext that he had ‘just received’ a letter from the PML-Q head Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in which he had directed his party MPAs not to vote for PTI and PML-Q’s joint candidate and his cousin Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

The deputy speaker’s ruling resulted in the defeat of Elahi at the hands of Pakistan PML-N’s Hamza Shehbaz, and it was only after the Supreme Court’s verdict on July 26 that the situation was reversed and Elahi was declared duly elected chief executive of the province.