LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: On Friday, outgoing Speaker Sibtain Khan administered the oath of office to newly elected members of the Punjab Assembly, ushering in Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief minister nominee Maryam Nawaz into parliamentary politics.
Sibtain presided over the provincial assembly session, which began after a more than two-hour delay on Friday.
The assembly secretary stated that the speaker and deputy speaker will be elected tomorrow (Saturday) via secret ballot. “Nomination papers for speaker and deputy speaker will be collected and scrutinised today,” he said in a statement.
This was the first provincial assembly session since the February 8 general elections, and the newly elected members were sworn in.
The session was attended by 313 parliamentarians, of which 215 were from the PML-N and its allied parties, while98 members of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) also took oath.
At the start of the delayed session, PML-N, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidates, and SIC members screamed slogans at each other and exchanged harsh words.
Imtiaz Sheikh, a PTI-backed candidate, arrived at the assembly disguised in a vehicle and wearing black glasses. He lay low in the vehicle’s back seat.
Later in the day, PML-N candidate Malik Ahmed Khan filed his nomination papers for the position of Punjab Assembly speaker, while Zaheer Iqbal Chunar filed for deputy speaker.
Meanwhile, SIC’s Ahmed Khan Bhachar and Moin Riaz Qureshi submitted applications for the two positions.
