On Saturday, Pakistan's Parliament is going to meet to appoint former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf as the new speaker and take a no-confidence motion against deputy speaker Qasim Khan Suri for acting in favor of the previous government led by Imran Khan.
Ashraf, 71, of the Pakistan Peoples Party PPP, will be given the Oath of office after he was elected as no other candidate on Friday submitted nomination papers against him until the 12 noon deadline.
The Speaker's Office was left vacant after Asad Qaiser resigned on April 9 after he failed to implement a decision by the Supreme Court to hold a no-confidence vote against prime minister Khan.
Ashraf, who previously served as the prime minister of Pakistan, was elected after the office of a speaker was given to the Pakistan Peoples Party, the leading partner of the current coalition government.
The National Assembly would take up the no-confidence resolution already moved against Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf PTI party member and Dep uty Speaker Suri, who is curretly functioning as the acting speaker.
Before the election of Shehbaz Sharif as the new prime minister of Pakistan on April 11, the party's lawmakers decided to resign from the National Assembly.
The resignations of 123 MNAs and the National Assembly NA Secretariat were announced by the PTI on Thursday, and Suri had also issued a notification in this regard.
The PML-N and the PPP allege that Suri had put pressure on the National Assembly Secretariat to accept the resignations.
The members of the National Assembly received a circular from Additional Secretary of Legislation of NA Secretariat Muhammad Mushtaq on Friday, informing them that the motion for leave to move the resolution for the removal of the deputy speaker from office would be taken up on April 16.
The National Assembly Secretariat has already issued a four-point agenda that included voting on the no-confidence resolution and the oath-taking of a new speaker.
Once Suri is removed, the parliament will elect a deputy speaker.
Shahida Akhtar Ali of Jamiat Ulema-i Islam-Fazl, another coalition partner, is said to be among the front runners.
The newspaper reported that the ruling alliance has agreed that Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani will be replaced by PPP's Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, who is also a former prime minister.