Daily Times

KARACHI: The newly elected legislators of the Sindh Assembly took their oaths on Monday.

Sindh Assembly speaker Agha Siraj Durrani began the initiation ceremony by administering oath to 165 members present in the session.

The oath was administered in Urdu, Sindhi and English. Following the oath taking ceremony, members of the assembly proceeded to sign the register role in alphabetical order.

Three seats in the parliament remained empty due to the pending status of official victory notification of two candidates and the death of one MPA-elect.

“I welcome my ex-colleagues and all newcomers. Sindh assembly has the honor of passing. This is the only assembly where Pakistan was founded, and first Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan was also form this assembly”, said Agha during his inaugural address.

The Sindh Assembly was dominated by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which had 97 lawmakers in the House. PPP is planning on forming the government with Murad Ali Shah on the helm as chief minister (CM).

Following the oath-taking ceremony, the opposition held a joint meeting in which it discussed nominations for CM and speaker slots.

The opposition decided to support Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) candidate for the post of speaker and back Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) candidate as the opposition leader.

Many fresh faces were seen in the Sindh Assembly since 55 parliamentarians including 15 women and 5 minority candidates will be beginning their parliamentary careers this year.

A majority of these fresh candidates (as many as 27) belonged to PPP. Some of the new candidates brought in by PPP included Faryal Talpur, Azra Pechuho, Farogh Ahmed Shah, Munawar Wasaan, Qasim Siraj Soomro, Tariq Talpur, Hari Ram Kishori, Mumtaz Ali Chandio, Raja Razzaq and Saleem Baloch. PTI’s Aslam Abro, Firdaus Shamim Naqvi, Shaharyar Sher, Raja Izhar, Jamal Siddiqui, Tahira Bhutto and Sadra Imran were also sitting in the assembly for the first time. Other newcomers included MQM-P’s Muhammad Wajahat, Ghulam Jilani Javed Hanif and Nasir Qureshi.

Candidates belonging to the newly formed Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) are also new additions to parliamentary politics in Sindh.

Younis Soomro, who won a seat on the ticket of TLP told Daily Times that TLP was neither a part of the opposition nor siding with the government.

“No decision has been reached by TLP regarding who to back for the posts of chief minister, speaker and deputy speaker,” said Soomro before adding that TLP’s real fight was against ‘liberals’ and ‘anti-state elements’.

“We have come to secure the ideology of Pakistan based on Islam,” declared Soomro. Another new face was TLP’s Sarwat Fatima who is the youngest MPA in the Sindh Assembly. Fatima, aged 25, took one of the reserved seats for women.

Sarwat Fatima said that TLP aimed to bring about a positive change by following the directives of TLP leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi. “We also want to work for women,” Fatima told Daily Times.

PPP MPA Tanzeela Qambrani was another newcomer in the parliament. 39 year old Qambrani took oath on reserved seat for women from PPP. Qambrani, who belongs to the Sheedi community, came to the Sindh assembly in traditional avatar.

Qambrani said that her ancestors had come to Sindh from Tanzania. “As a tiny minority lost in the midst of local populations, we have fought to conserve our African roots and cultural expression, but I look forward to the day when the name Sheedi would stir up respect, not disdain.” she added.

“I wore the Sindhi Ajrak and African traditional apparel on this happy occasion to represent my community.

I am ready to sit in the parliament and represent my people as a daughter of Sindh,” said Qambrani.

Published in Daily Times, August 14^th 2018.