LAHORE: The inaugural session of the 18th Punjab Assembly will be conducted at 10am today (Friday), Geo News reported on Thursday.
The recently elected members of the provincial assembly, who won the February 8 general elections, will take oath in tomorrow's session.
Punjab Governor Baligh Ur Rehman has issued a notification to convene a meeting of the Punjab Assembly, while Speaker Sibtain Khan will administer the oath to the newly elected members.
Khan would be administering the oath to the newly elected lawmakers as the speaker withholds his position till a new speaker is elected by the new house.
With the summons, the Punjab Assembly also becomes the first legislative body that will take oath post-election.
The announcement comes a day after thePakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) held its parliamentary meeting at the Jati Umra in Lahore.
According to the PML-N sources, 218 members — including independent members, PML-N MPAs as well as members nominated for reserved seats — attended the meetingpresided over by Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz.
Sources said 137 successful candidates of PMLN, 58 women nominated for specific seats and more than 22 independent members, who joined the PMLN after the elections, were present.
It merits a mention that 186 members were required to form the government.
Among the newly elected members, Maryam will be one of the new entrants to step foot inside the provincial legislature as an elected member.She is also nominated as the party's candidate for the chief minister slot after her victory from both the national and provincial assembly seats — NA-119 and PP-159, respectively — in the February 8 polls.
During the meeting on Wednesday, Maryam pledged to serve the province in a way that would "set records" of good governance in the country.
Revealing her game plan for Punjab in a media talk, the CM-hopeful said: “A new era will usher in Punjab. I congratulate the PML-N for securing victory [and gaining a majority in the Punjab Assembly].”
If voted into power, Maryam will become the first woman to be elected as a chief minister in Pakistan’s seven-decade-plus history. She will take over the province with a population of more than 127 million people, more than half of Pakistan’s population.
“This was a tough election, I thank the people of Punjab for providing us with a clear majority. We will set records of service; I haven’t rested since the election results, all of us will have to work as a team,” she added.
Maryam, who holds the portfolios of PML-N’s senior vice-president and chief organiser, said it was a “huge honour” for her to be nominated as Punjab’s first chief minister and dedicated it to the “daughters, mothers, sisters, and reserved seats’ women”.
The CM nominee said the province faces “major challenges” in the health care and education sectors as well as the local government. “There’s also a huge issue of sewage, clean water in rural areas.”
Maryam told the newly-elected MPAs that they would have to view Punjab’s 297 constituencies as 297 districts in order to ensure development in every lawmaker’s constituency.