President Asif Ali Zardari is scheduled to address a joint session of Parliament to kick off the parliamentary year after the February 8 general elections, Private channel reported on Thursday.
Zardari’s Speech in Parliament
The meeting convened by the President under the powers provided in Articles 54 (1) and 56 (3) of the Constitution shall commence at 4 p.m. This will be President Zardari’s seventh address as he had previously addressed the joint session of Parliament six times during his previous tenure as the country’s head of state from 2008 to 2013.
Apart from this, the President has called the meeting of the National Assembly (tomorrow) at 10:30 am on Friday, using the powers obtained under Article 54 (1) of the Constitution.
The joint session was earlier called for April 16 but was rescheduled for today.
It should be noted that this will be the first joint session after the election of the members of both the upper house and the lower house after the beginning of the new parliamentary year in the country.
Despite elections being held on February 8 and former President Arif Alvi remaining in office, he was unable to convene a joint session as the Senate elections were yet to be held.
Earlier, Alvi had called for a joint session of Parliament on October 6, 2022 – months after a coalition government led by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was ruling at the Centre.
However, the then President convened the session in 2022 to mark the beginning of the last parliamentary year of the then National Assembly.
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A significant number of members of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which has registered strong protests in previous sessions too, are likely to face a strong reaction from opposition benches in today’s session.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly Secretariat has invited the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Governors and Chief Ministers of all provinces including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.