KARACHI/PESHAWAR/QUETTA: Newly elected members of the provincial assemblies of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were sworn in on Monday.

The oath to 160 out of the total 168 members of the Sindh Assembly was administered by Agha Siraj Khan Durrani, the outgoing speaker. Mr Durrani, who has also been nominated by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) as its candidate for the post of speaker of the new assembly, administered the oath to the members in Urdu, Sindhi and English.

An extremely congenial atmosphere was witnessed during the session among the members belonging to different political parties, including the PPP, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

Token protest by joint opposition in KP Assembly against poll ‘rigging’

In Peshawar, the newly elected members of the KP Assembly took the oath amid a token protest by the joint opposition against alleged rigging in the July 25 general elections.

The MPAs-elect of opposition parties entered the assembly hall wearing black armbands. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Sardar Aurangzaib Nalotha, who was chairing the session, administered the oath to 111 members of the 124-strong house.

The assembly’s main hall was filled to capacity as guests and PTI workers showed up in large numbers to witness the swearing-in. Disorder was witnessed all through the maiden session of the PTI-dominated house, whose ground and first floor galleries were packed.

In Quetta, outgoing speaker Rahila Hameed Khan Durrani administered the oath to 58 new legislators of the 65-member Balochistan Assembly. After taking the oath, the members offered prayers for the martyrs of the Mastung massacre as well as the lawyers who were martyred in the Aug 8, 2016, terrorist attack.

Sardar Saleh Bhootani is the senior-most member who returned to the assembly for the seventh time. Former chief minister Nawab Sanaullah Khan Zehri of the PML-N did not appear during the session.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2018