Gul Bar Khan elected new G-B CM

SKARDU: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) forward bloc leader Gul Bar Khan was elected as Gilgit-Baltistan’s new chief minister on Thursday, days after controversy marred the top post’s polls.

His election to the role comes after PTI’s Khalid Khurshid Khan was disqualified as chief minister over a fake degree earlier this month.

Just days earlier, opposition leader in the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly Amjad Hussain had resigned from his assembly membership and announced boycotting the elections.

Gul Bar, who received 19 votes from the 20 members present in the house, was elected unopposed as three other candidates vying for the post withdrew their nomination papers.

An independent lawmaker, Nawaz Khan Naji, abstained from voting, with Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) parliamentarians backing the new CM.

All 11 members of the PTI’s ‘like-minded group’ boycotted the polling, claiming rigging.

In the 32-member house, the PTI has 19 members, the PPP four, the PML-N three and the Muttahida Wahdat-i-Muslimeen three as well, while the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Islam Tehreek Pakistan have one each, along with one independent candidate.