LAHORE - With the induction of 12 new ministers on Wednesday, the Punjab Cabinet now comprises 34 Ministers while 14 districts still have no representation.
Punjab Governor Ch Muhammad Sarwar administered oath to the newly appointed Provincial Ministers at a ceremony held at the Governor House yesterday.
Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, his Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Speaker Punjab Assembly Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari attended the ceremony alongwith senior officers.
The MPAs who took oath as Ministers include: Pir Syed Saeed ul Hassan Shah (Narowal), Mehar Muhammad Aslam (Jhang), Syed Husnain Jahanian Gardezi (Khanewal), Muhammad Ajmal (Faisalabad), Muhammad Akhlaq (Sialkot), Ms Ashifa Riaz (T.T Singh), Shoukat Ali Laleka (Bahawalnagar), Zawar Hussain Warraich (Lodhran), Ijaz Masih (Minority seat), Mian Khalid Mehmood (Sheikhupura), Muhammad Jahanzaib Khan Khichi (Vehari) and Muhammad Akhter (Multan).
The portfolios of new Ministers will be announced later.
The 14 districts which don’t have representation in the provincial Cabinet so far include: Chiniot, Gujranwala, Layyah, Nankana Sahib, Pakpattan, Hafizabad, Mandi Bahauddin, Muzaffargarh, Okara, Bhakkar, Khushab, D.G Khan, Gujrat and Jhelum. Of these, PTI could not win a single provincial seat from Gujranwala and Okara districts in 2018 general elections.
All the provincial seats from the two districts were captured by the PML-N except one seat from Okara which was clichéd by an independent candidate, Syeda Maimanat Mohsin.
The DG Khan district has no representation in the Cabinet assuming that the Chief Minister belongs to this district.
Though the PTI had won two provincial seats from Jhelum in the last general election, but no Minister has been taken in the provincial Cabinet most probably because the Federal Minister for Information also belongs to this district. Similarly, no Minister has been taken in the Cabinet from Gujrat since it has its representation in the form of Speaker Ch Parvez Elahi though he is not part of the Cabinet.
But the rest of nine districts have been ignored apparently for no solid reason. PTI had won eight provincial seats out of total 10 from Muzaffargarh district but no Minister has been taken from this district.
The ruling party had also won majority of the seats from other districts which have been left unrepresented.
Five Ministers including Aleem Khan, Mian Mahmood ur Rashid, Dr Yasmeen Rashid, Mian Aslam Iqbal and Murad Raas have been taken from Lahore alone. Rawalpindi district has got three Ministers which include:Basharat Raja, Fayyazul Hasan Chohan and Raja Rashid Hafeez.
Three Ministers, Ch Zaheeruddin, Muhammad Ajmal and Mumtaz Ahmad have been inducted from Faisalabad while two Ministers (Yasir Hamayun and Ammar Yasir) have been taken from Chakwal district.
Rajanpur has also got two Ministers which include: Mohsin Leghari and Sardar Hasnain Bahadur Dareshak.
The districts of Jhang, Mianwali, Sahiwal, Kasur, Attock, Sargodha, T.T Singh, Narowal, Sialkot, Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur, Rahimyar Khan, Sheikhupura, Multan, Vehari, Khanewal and Lodhran have got one Minister each.
