The Punjab Assembly is the first house to convene its opening session, out of five assemblies that went to the elections. The assembly meeting is scheduled to begin shortly.
Punjab Governor Muhammad Balighur Rehman had formally issued a notification calling for the assembly meeting today.Speaker Punjab Assembly Sabatin Khan will administer the oath to the elected representatives marking their official induction into the legislative body.Meanwhile, the schedule for the election of new speaker and deputy speaker of the house will also be released. After the induction of independent MPA-elects in the party, PML-N has become the largest party in the Punjab Assembly which has announced to form the government in the province as Maryam Nawaz its head, according to the media reports.The PTI leadership Thursday decided that Punjab chief ministerial candidate Mian Aslam Iqbal of the party, along with all newly-elected members of Punjab Assembly, will attend the assembly session today (Friday).According to the party’s Central Media Department, the candidates, who lost their seats as a result of the “robbery of the mandate”, have been directed to protest outside the Punjab Assembly session today.The senior party leadership charged that in Punjab, very shameful and absurd tactics are being used to keep Iqbal out of the process of chief minister’s election.“Cowardly attempts are being made to clear the ground through the state machinery for Maryam Nawaz, a fascist-minded criminal who has been included in the race for the chief minister’s post by openly robbing the people’s mandate,” they claimed.Despite getting bail in all the cases from the Peshawar High Court, at the behest of Maryam Nawaz, who was rejected by the public through vote slip, the Punjab police tried to abduct Mian Aslam Iqbal, it said.Without being influenced by fascism and lawlessness, they made it clear the elected members of the PTI will reach the Assembly along with the chief ministerial candidate Mian Aslam Iqbal and will fight the mandate thieves.“The spectacle of state patronage of mandate thieves should be stopped and the stolen mandate should be returned to the elected representatives of the people and pave the way for the supremacy of Constitution and law across the country, especially in Punjab. The people who have rejected the fascists with their vote despite all the difficulties will not allow them to force themselves by dividing their mandate among thieves,” they said.