Nirmal Singh, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Deputy Chief Minister, was on Thursday elected as the Speaker of J&K Legislative Assembly.
Deputy Speaker Nazir Gurezi said the motion for Nirmal Singh's election as the Speaker was moved by state's Law Minister Basharat Bukhari and was adopted by the House through a voice vote of the majority PDP-BJP legislators.
Opposition MLAs in the assembly abstained from the voting process.
Erstwhile speaker, Kavinder Gupta, has swapped places with Nirmal Singh as the Deputy Chief Minister of the state.
Earlier, the Deputy Speaker had adjourned the House as the opposition members alleged that Nirmal Singh had filed his papers even before the notification for the said election was issued.
Gurezi had also said before adjourning the House for half an hour that all previous Speakers had been elected through consensus among the legislators present in the House.
--IANS
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