Punjab Assembly likely to meet next week ahead of Senate polls: sources    

LAHORE: A summary for summoning the Punjab Assembly session next week, ahead of the Senate elections, has been sent to the Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, ARY NEWS reported quoting sources.       

According to sources, the session would likely be conveyed in the next week and Governor Punjab would summon the session after approval from the chief minister.

“The provincial government plans to bring ordinances before the assembly,” they said.

Moreover, preparations have begun ahead of the session at the assembly secretariat as upgradation work of CCTV cameras installed at the assembly is in the process on the directives of Speaker Pervaiz Elahi.

The CCTV cameras of the Punjab Assembly were thoroughly checked and experts also visited the assembly building and examined their direction.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Senate elections are scheduled in the province for March 03.

On February 18, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) carried out the scrutiny process of the nomination papers filed by Senate candidates from Punjab and approved 20 nominations, rejected two of them while three candidates withdrew their papers.

The ECP approved nominations of 10 candidates each from PML-N and PTI and one each of PPP and PML-Q. The election body rejected nominations of two candidates including PML-N’s Pervaiz Rasheed and PTI’s Neelum Irshad.

The candidates whose nominations got approved included PML-Q’s Kamil Ali Agha and PPP’s Azeem ul Haq Minhas.

The 10 PTI candidates whose papers were approved included Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, Dr Zarqa, Muhammad Madni, Umar Sarfaraz Cheema, Barrister Ali Zafar, Saifullah Niazi, Aijaz Chaudhry, Zaheer Abbas Khokhar, Aijaz Minhas, and Aon Abbas.

The PML-N candidates whose candidature was approved for Senate included Zahid Hamid, Azam Nazir Tarar, Saiful Malook Khokhar, Irfan Siddiqui, Baligur Rehman, Saira Afzal Tarar, Sajid Mir, Afnanullah Khan and Sadia Abbasi.