Members of 13th Punjab Vidhan Sabha take oath

Chandigarh, Mar 15 (UNI) Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Cabinet colleagues took oath as member of the 13th Vidhan Sabha, at its first session, which commenced here today.

Besides the Chief Minister and his 17 Cabinet colleagues, 96 MLAs took the oath of affirmation to the Indian Constitution and the House. Protem Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon administered the oath.

Three members of House--Maninder Singh Kang (SAD) who was elected from Beas yesterday, Harmeet Singh Sandhu (SAD) from Tarn Taran and Brahm Mohindra (Cong) from Samana, did not take the oath as they were not present in the House.

The 13th Vidhan Sabha has 49 MLA's belonging to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), 19 to the BJP, an ally of the SAD and 44 members from the Congress. There are five independents in the House.

Mr Badal was the first to take oath and was followed by Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia, the leader of the BJP legislature group. They were followed by the other Ministers including the two women ministers, Dr Upinderjit Kaur and Mrs Laxmi Kanta Chawla.

A majority of the members took the oath in Punjabi, barring Mrs Chawla (BJP), the minister of Health and Family Welfare who took the oath in Sanskrit and Mr Sunil Jakhar (Cong) who took the oath in Hindi. Mrs Razia Sultan (Cong), the lone Muslim MLA took the oath in Urdu, while Jagdish Sahni (BJP) and Jasbir Singh Khangura (Cong), both took the oath in English.

After the Chief Minister and his Cabinet colleagues had taken oath, the Protem Speaker administered the oath to other women members of the House. Leader of the opposition Mrs Rajinder Kaur Bhattal took the oath in Punjabi after Mrs Razia Sultan, who was dressed in a saffaron 'chuni', white 'kameez' and green 'salwar'--the colours of the national flag.

The present House has seven women members---four belonging to the Congress and two to SAD and one to the BJP.

After the women members, MLAs from Amritsar were the first to take oath, followed by those from the other districts. Former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh was the first amongst the members of Patiala district to take oath. He took the oath in Punjabi.

UNI