ISLAMABAD: As many as 31 federal ministers and three ministers of state in the cabinet of new prime minister Shehbaz Sharif took oath over a week after the ouster of Imran Khan through a no-trust move on April 10.
As President Arif Alvi belonging to the PTI refused to administer the oath, Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani performed the oath.
A statement said PML-N’s Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Rana Sanaullah, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Rana Tanveer Hussain, Khurram Dastgir Khan, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Miftah Ismail, Javed Latif, Riaz Hussain Pirzada, Murtaza Javed Abbasi and Azam Nazeer Tarar took the oath as federal ministers.
From the PPP, Syed Khursheed Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar, Sherry Rehman, Abdul Qadir Patel, Shazia Marri, Syed Murtaza Mahmud, Sajid Hussain Turi, Ehsan Ur Rehman Mazari and Abid Hussain took the oath as federal ministers.
The ceremony was scheduled to be held on Monday, but it transpired that President Arif Alvi had refused to administer the oath to the lawmakers, compelling the government to postpone the ceremony to 11am Tuesday (today).
According to sources, President Alvi was expected to go on leave on Tuesday over reported illness so that Sanjrani could perform the duty.
Previously, the president had also excused himself to administer the oath to Sharif on health grounds after which Sanjrani had taken over the responsibility.
Meanwhile, at a media briefing on Monday, PML-N’s Marriyum Aurangzeb had said that the list of cabinet members had yet to be finalised, hinting that last-minute changes could be made before the oath-taking ceremony.
I don’t want to say anything about the new govt but hope Shahbaz Sharif will restart work for development of Chitral from where his elder brother had left in 2017.