MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Iftikhar Gillani on Friday constituted a relatively small cabinet, appointing seven directly elected and one indirectly elected lawmaker as ministers without portfolios.
Acting President Chaudhry Tariq Farooq swore in the newly appointed ministers during a well-attended ceremony at the Presidency, in the presence of the prime minister.
Those inducted into the cabinet were Raja Saqib Majeed and Dr Mustafa Bashir Abbasi from Muzaffarabad, Sardar Mir Akbar from Bagh, Raja Riasat and Raja Umair Naeem from Kotli, Waqar Noor from Bhimber and Chaudhry Azhar Sadiq from Mirpur.
The eighth cabinet member, Chaudhry Abdul Rehman Arain, originally hails from Kotli and is a prominent Birmingham-based businessman. He was elected against a reserved seat for Kashmiris living abroad.
Abbasi, Noor, Akbar and Sadiq previously served as ministers, while the rest are fresh faces returning to the Legislative Assembly for the first time. The portfolios of the newly appointed ministers were not announced immediately.
PML-N regional president Shah Ghulam Qadir was conspicuous by his presence at the ceremony. Mr Qadir, who had initially been tipped as the next prime minister, had opposed Gillani’s nomination by the party leadership and did not participate in his election as leader of the house or his subsequent swearing-in ceremony on Aug 28.
Former minister and senior parliamentarian Noreen Arif was not inducted into the cabinet. She has the distinction of being the only woman to have won a territorial constituency in three direct elections — in 2006, 2016 and 2026 — in addition to serving four other terms on reserved seats.
The nine PML-N legislators elected from refugee constituencies in Pakistan were also excluded from the cabinet. The 10th PML-N refugee lawmaker has already been elected as the Legislative Assembly’s deputy speaker.
Contrary to speculation on social media, much of it apparently fuelled by aspirants themselves, no one was appointed as an adviser or special assistant to the government.
In brief interactions with journalists, the new ministers thanked the prime minister for reposing confidence in them and vowed to discharge their responsibilities to the best of their abilities in the service of the public.
Under the 13th Amendment to the AJK Constitution, enacted in 2018, the then-PML-N government introduced a restriction limiting the cabinet to 30pc of the Assembly’s total strength, or 16 ministers. Two advisers and two special assistants could be appointed in addition to the ministers.
The restriction did not apply to the then-PML-N government itself, as it was made applicable from the inception of the next Assembly in 2021. The two prime ministers of the subsequent PTI governments, Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi and Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, had to abide by the restriction.
The cap was lifted in June 2023, shortly after the installation of the Chaudhry Anwarul Haq-led coalition government. This paved the way for the induction of more than 30 lawmakers from the PTI forward bloc, PPP and PML-N as ministers, advisers and special assistants.
The last PPP government, however, kept the cabinet at 20 members, including 18 ministers and two advisers, under an understanding with the now-proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee. –Agencies
