The first session of the 15th National Assembly is underway in Islamabad during which 331 members of the lower house of the parliament took oath after their election in the July 25 countrywide polls.
Outgoing NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq administered the oath to the MNAs-elect in the 342-member house.
Prime minister-in-waiting and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan and other prominent political leaders, including PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and former president Asif Ali Zardari, are present in the assembly for the oath-taking.
TV footage showed the PTI chief shaking hands with Bilawal, who is entering NA for his maiden term.The session commenced with the MNAs-elect standing up for the national anthem. This was followed by the recitation of the Holy Quran.
The speaker then read out the procedure for the election of the new speaker and deputy speaker.
The MNAs-elect then stood up as Sadiq administered the oath of office to them. The MNAs were then asked to proceed to the speaker’s desk to sign the roll of members. Being first in the alphabetical order, PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari was the first to be called to sign the roll.
After administering the oath to the MNAs, the speaker will prorogue the NA session until August 15, when the new speaker and deputy speaker of the assembly will be elected. The nomination papers for the same will be submitted tomorrow.
Strict security measures have been taken to avoid any untoward incident during the proceedings and irrelevant persons have been barred from entering the house.
Sessions are also set to begin in the provincial assemblies of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan for the MPAs-elect to take oath.
The PTI has already nominated former speaker of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Asad Qaiser for the office of NA speaker and he would face Syed Khursheed Shah of the PPP, a joint candidate of the 11-party alliance, Pakistan Alliance for Free and Fair Elections.
Similarly, PTI chairman Imran Khan will be contesting against PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif for the office of the prime minister.
After the issuance of notifications of the returned candidates on the reserved seats for women and minorities by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday, the PTI has 158 members in the National Assembly.
The PTI’s tally has reached 158 members after the joining of nine independents and bagging 33 seats reserved for women and minorities.
Out of the 60 reserved women seats, the PTI has clinched 28, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) with 16 seats, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) nine seats, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) two seats and one seat each by Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), Balochistan National Party (BNP), Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q).
Similarly, out of the 10 reserved seats for minorities, the PTI has won five, followed by two each by the PPP and PML-N and one by the MMA.
If the votes of the PTI and its allied parties are counted, the total comes to 184 in the house of 339. In addition to this, four independent MNAs-elect are also poised to support the PTI and, therefore, the total number of the members belonging to the PTI and its allies comes to 188. But the PTI will still not be facing a weak opposition as the strength of its arch-rival PML-N and its allies also comes to 151.
