Daily Times

The Punjab Assembly is likely to meet for its inaugural session on August 13 (Monday) in which the newly elected Members Provincial Assembly (MPAs) would take oath, Daily Times has learnt reliably.

A source privy to the development said that a summary by the Law Department had been forwarded to the Punjab governor to summon the assembly’s session on Monday.

As per the law, president / provincial governors are bound to summon the inaugural sessions of national and provincial assemblies within 21 days after the elections.

Outgoing Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan would administer the oath to the newly elected MPAs in the inaugural session and the schedule for the elections of speaker and deputy speaker would be issued the same day while elections for the two coveted posts would be held through secret balloting in the very next sitting.

The election for leader of the House, who will automatically become chief minister of the province, will be held once the elections of speaker and deputy speaker are held.

Although, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) emerged as a single largest party in the Punjab Assembly with 129 seats out of 297 directly elected MPAs, it is not in a position to form the government in the province as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has reached the magical figure to form the government by wooing the independent MPAs.

As many as 186 MPAs are required to form the government in the Punjab that has a total strength of 371 MPAs. The PTI has claimed to achieve the required figure after securing support of 25 independent MPAs and 8 PML-Q MPAs.

Once the MPAs on reserved seats are added then the tally of PTI is likely to reach 190 as PTI will get over 30 MPAs on reserved seats for women and minorities.

There are 66 reserved seats for woman and eight for minorities in the Punjab Assembly that has total strength of 371 members and MPAs on reserved seats will be notified by the Election Commission of Pakistan soon.

Both the PML-N and PTI have yet to announce its candidate for the CM Punjab slot although the PTI has announced former Punjab CM Ch Pervaiz Elahi as its candidate for speaker. Both the parties are likely to formally announce its candidates for CM, speaker and deputy speaker slots in a day or two for Punjab.

Published in Daily Times, August 11^th 2018.