Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi on Thursday tendered his resignation from his office to defuse the move by his parliamentary party — PTI — to replace him with regional president Sardar Tanveer Ilyas through a vote of no-confidence.

“Under Article 16 (1) of the AJK Constitution, I, the undersigned, resign from my office of the prime minister,” reads the handwritten resignation dated April 14, which was addressed to the AJK president.

Dr Asif Hussain Shah, secretary of presidential affairs, confirmed to Dawn that President Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry had received and accepted the resignation and forwarded the same to the chief secretary for issuance of a formal notification in this regard.

Niazi was to face a vote of no confidence on Friday after 25 members of the PTI parliamentary party had moved a resolution to this effect against him on Tuesday under Article 18 of the AJK Constitution.

The movers had charged him with “loss of the trust of the parliamentary party, failure to highlight Kashmir issue and implement party manifesto in addition to bad governance, nepotism and violation of merit.”

Since the AJK Constitution makes it mandatory for the movers of a no-trust resolution to name a successor to the prime minister, they had nominated the party’s regional president Ilyas to succeed Niazi.

A session for voting on the no-trust move is summoned by the speaker under Article 27 (4) not earlier than three and not later than seven days after the receipt of the resolution.

After the approval of the resolution by the majority of the total membership, the successor is deemed to have been elected as prime minister.

On Tuesday, AJK Assembly Speaker Anwarul Haq had announced his decision to convene a session at 10:30am on Friday. The notification, however, had not mentioned any reason as to why the session had been called.

Abdul Majid Khan, one of the signatories of the no-trust move, told Dawn that the session beginning on Friday was convened by the speaker on the requisition of 25 PTI lawmakers which he said was submitted under Rule 17(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly shortly before the submission of the no-trust resolution.

“The house will assemble on Friday during which Rule 15 (1) will be suspended to conduct the process for the election of the new leader of the house in one day,” he asserted.

Rule 15 (1) of the Rules of Procedure lays down a condition that nomination papers of the prime ministerial candidate should be filed two days before the day fixed for voting.

Some legal experts were of the view that in the event of the prime minister's resignation, the session had to be summoned by the president within 14 days of the resignation to elect the new prime minister as the session already summoned by the speaker could not proceed to elect the new leader of the house.

However, Abdul Majid Khan maintained that since the assembly was deemed to be in session at the time of the premier’s resignation, it was empowered to proceed forthwith to elect a new leader of the house.

He claimed that Ilyas would be elected by at least 32 lawmakers.

“All PTI lawmakers have arrived in Muzaffarabad and will vote tomorrow for the party’s nominee,” he said.

Ministers removed

Earlier in the day, Niazi removed four ministers and an adviser, accusing them in his summary for the purpose of “misconduct, wrongdoings and malpractices”.

Those removed were minister for local government and rural development Khawaja Farooq Ahmed, minister for finance and inland revenue Abdul Majid Khan, minister for food Ali Shan Soni and adviser for civil defence and disaster management Chaudhry Muhammad Akbar Ibrahim.

“The no-trust motion against Abdul Qayyum Niazi was submitted under the decision of party chairman and our leader Imran Khan. Alas, the person who Imran Khan chose out of 32 [parliamentary party members] for this office is publicly trying to sabotage his decision. But we stand by our chairman,” tweeted Ahmed in the wake of the reports that Niazi had removed him and four others from the cabinet.

Niazi regrets allegations against him

Speaking at a presser in Islamabad's Kashmir House, Niazi regretted that “baseless allegations” had been levelled against him in the no-trust resolution.

“My sin is that neither did I commit corruption myself nor did I allow anyone else to do that … I regret the hypocrisy of those who backstabbed me,” he said while waving a copy of the no-trust resolution.

Interestingly, not a single member of the PTI parliamentary party was in attendance at his presser.

Niazi said he had exercised his democratic right by tendering the resignation.

“I first sent my resignation to the party chairman Imran Khan and then to the president after a lapse of one hour.”

He said he would continue to work as an ordinary worker of PTI.

“But it should be clear that I cannot sit with the thieves and dacoits,” he said without naming anyone.