The newly elected members of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinets were officially sworn in on Wednesday. In Lahore, Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman administered the oath to the 18-member cabinet of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz at the Governor House. The ceremony was attended by Maryam, Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Khan, and provincial police chief Usman Anwar, among others.
The newly sworn-in cabinet members in Punjab included Marriyum Aurangzeb, Syed Muhammad Ashiq Hussain Shah, Muhammad Kazim Pirzada, and others. According to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan, portfolios for the ministers were expected to be announced later in the day. CM Maryam praised the new appointees, noting that they were young and talented individuals.
In KP, the provincial cabinet of 15 ministers and five advisors took their oath at the Governor House in Peshawar. Governor Haji Ghulam Ali administered the oath. The ministers included Arshad Ayub Khan, Shakeel Ahmad, Fazal Hakim Khan, and others. Syed Fakhar Jehan, Muzamil Aslam, Muhammad Ali Saif, Mashal Azam, and Zahid Chanzeb were appointed as advisers to the chief minister.
The formation of the KP cabinet came after CM Ali Amin Gandapur met with PTI founder Imran Khan at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. Gandapur reaffirmed the party’s stance of not reconciling with the Shehbaz Sharif-led PML-N government, but maintained a working relationship with the federal government.