PTI leadership had decided to make him president: Asad

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar disclosed that the PTI leadership had decided to make him country’s president after winning 2018 general elections but he was interested in becoming Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister at that time.

“I think at that time I got more administrative experience being a speaker of KP Assembly so I wanted to serve the province as a chief minister,” he said in a recent interview with Jang and The News. National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar said when the party leadership took a decision that Mahmood Khan will be the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa then Prime Minister Imran Khan came to his residence and asked that he has three days to tell whether he wanted to be the president of Pakistan or not. “When the party leadership decided to make me president then it was also decided that Dr Arif Alvi will contest the election of speaker National Assembly,” he added. Asad Qaisar said he consulted with his close friends on the offer from the party for the post of president and after consultation he told the party leadership that he was interested in office of speaker National Assembly. “Then the party gave me office of speaker National Assembly and office of president of Pakistan to Dr Arif Alvi,” he said.

He said his entry in politics was from the platform of Islami Jamiat and senior journalist/anchorperson Salim Safi was not only his school fellow but also in Islami Jamiat. Former information minister Muhammad Ali Durrani was our teacher, from whom we learnt lot,” he added.