MUZAFFARABAD: A day after newly elected Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Raja Faisal Mumtaz Rathore took his oath of office, his cabinet began taking shape on Wednesday as 18 legislators from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) were sworn in as ministers. The ceremony, held at Aiwan-i-Sadr in Muzaffarabad, was administered by AJK Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar, who is serving as acting president due to the illness of AJK President Barrister Sultan Mahmood.
President Mahmood, according to officials, was unable to travel to the regional capital because of health complications. The ceremony was attended by PM Rathore himself, along with former AJK premiers Sardar Tanveer Ilyas and Haji Yaqoob Khan, senior bureaucrats, and a large number of PPP workers and supporters.
The ministers sworn in include Mian Abdul Waheed, Sardar Javed Ayoub, Javed Iqbal Budhanvi, Chaudhry Qasim Majeed, Amar Yasin, Sardar Ziaul Qamar, Syed Bazil Ali Naqvi, Nabila Ayub Khan, Deevan Ali Chughtai, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Chaudhry Arshad, Chaudhry Muhammad Rasheed, Yasir Sultan, Sardar Muhammad Hussain, Chaudhry Akhlaq, Faheem Akhtar Rabbani, Rafique Nayyar and Ali Shan Soni.
Of the 18, the first eight had won the 2021 elections on PPP tickets. The remaining legislators were originally elected on Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) tickets but shifted allegiance to the PPP in recent weeks. Nabila Ayub Khan, elected on a reserved seat, is the only woman in the new cabinet, while no minister has been chosen from among MLAs elected on refugee seats. Portfolios are expected to be announced later.
During the ceremony, the appointment of two advisers—Sardar Ahmad Saghir and Sardar Fahad Yaqoob—was also announced. Both come from political families that recently defected from PTI to PPP. Although the AJK Constitution allows advisers, it does not specify an oath, yet PM Rathore administered one.
Rathore became AJK’s fourth prime minister in four years after Chaudhry Anwarul Haq was removed through a vote of no-confidence on Monday.
