Mumtaz Ahmed Khan of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) on Wednesday took oath as the Pro-tem Speaker of the Telangana State Legislative Assembly. Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan administered the oath to Khan at a ceremony held at Raj Bhavan. Khan, a five-time MLA, is the senior-most member of the House.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Council Chairman K. Swamy Goud, Home Minister Mohammad Mahmood Ali, AIMIM President and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi and senior officials attended the programme.
The first session of the newly-elected Assembly is scheduled to begin on Thursday. The Pro-tem speaker will chair the session on the first day and administer the oath of office to the newly-elected members, including the nominated member from Anglo-Indian community.
On Thursday itself, the schedule of election to the Speaker will be announced and the nomination process will commence. The Speaker is likely to be elected on Friday.
Later, the Speaker will conduct the Business Advisory Council (BAC) meeting which will take a decision on the Governor's address on the following day.
On January 19, the Governor will address the House. The next day the House will introduce motion of thanks to the Governor's address and adopt the same.
Meanwhile, KCR has called for cooperation from other parties in the state. On Wednesday, after the pro-tem Speaker’s swearing in ceremony, the Telangana Chief Minister called AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi, BJP state chief Dr K Laxman and Congress chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy. While the BJP and AIMIM agreed to cooperate, Uttam is reportedly discussing the issue with his party leaders before a final decision is taken.
Elections to the 119-member Assembly in Telangana were held on December 7 and the results announced on December 11, saw the TRS sweep the polls with 88 seats, while the Congress won 19 seats. The AIMIM retained the 7 seats that it had won in the 2014 elections, while the BJP managed to retain only one out of five constituencies where incumbent MLAs were contesting.
IANS inputs