Punjab Assembly session on April 9
By Khawaja Ahsan Paul 'Pakistan Times' Punjab Bureau Chief

LAHORE: The inaugural session of the 14th Provincial Assembly of the Punjab will be held on Wednesday with over 350 members to take oath in house of 371.

PML-N, part of ruling coalition have 165 seats in the assembly followed by PPP 106, PML(Q) 86, MMA 2 PML-F4 and independents 2.

PML-N has tipped Sardar Dost Muhammad Khosa son of Zulfiqar Khosa ,ex-governor and President PML-N Punjab as interim Chief Minister before Shahbaz Sharif get’s elected in by-election and reaches the house to take slot of provincial Chief executive of the province.

Rana Muhammad Iqbal will be the candidate of the coalition for speaker of the Punjab assembly.

More than 350 newly elected members of the Punjab Assembly would take oath on April 9. Speaker of the PA Chaudhery Muhammad Afzal Sahi would administer oath to the new members.

After oath taking, the candidates would file nomination papers for the positions of PA Speaker and Deputy Speaker and the election would be held on April 11.

Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan and Sardar Shaukat Hussain Mazari are candidates for PA Speakership and Deputy Speakership respectively.

PML-Q will announce names of its members for these slots on April 8. Security has been beefed up and limited entry passes have been issued for guests.

Brief history of the Punjab Assembly is as follows;

After the creation of the country, first session of the assembly was held on January 5,1948 and last from March 15,1948 to April 4 1948.

Sheikh Faiz Muhammad was elected unopposed as its speaker on January 5,1948 and it had total 103 members. I

t was dissolved by Governor on January 25,1949.In total its two session were held and its actual working days were 29.

The first session of the second assembly of the Punjab was held on May 7,1951. Its total members were 193 while Dr.Khalifa Shuja Uddin was elected its speaker. With creation of one unit it ceased to exist on October 14,1955.

Following creation of one unit, elections were held on January 19,1956 and first session of the hosue having 310 members was held on May 5,1956.

Chaudhery Fazal Elahi was elected its speaker. In total its six sessions were held with actual working days of 80.

It was dissolved with the proclamation of Martial law on October 7,1958.

Fourth assembly which came into being through system of elections coined by the then president Ayub Khan complested its tenure of three years from june 9,192 to June 8 1965.

Fifth assembly whose first session was held on June 9,1965 having the same number of members 160 as the fourth assembly had was dissolved on March 25,1969 when once again when martial law imposed on the country.●