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Friday March 29, 2024

Senate opposition stages walkout over PM’s absence

By Mumtaz Alvi
May 09, 2019

ISLAMABAD: Joint opposition in the Senate on Wednesday agitated on continual staying away of Prime Minister Imran Khan from the House and also not figuring in what he had promised the weekly zero hour to reply to questions.

Opposition Senators also walked out of the House in protest against absence of Prime Minister in relation to a calling attention notice about his recent statement that terrorists had in the past misused Pakistani territory to undertake attacks in Iran.

The alleged killing of an FC man in Mohmand district recently also figured during the stormy session; he allegedly tried to assault a woman, who was alone at home and left with no option to protect herself from him by gunning him down, as he was hell-bent on raping her, as claimed by JI Senator Mushtaq Ahmad.

PPP Vice-President Senator Sherry Rehman wanted the Prime Minister to come to the Senate and brief the House about the rise in acts of terrorism in recent days and the one, which claimed at least eight lives at Data Darbar, Lahore. The calling attention notice was moved by the National Party Senator Mir Kabir Shahi, who drew the attention of the foreign minister towards the prime minister’s statement in which he had said that Pakistani soil was used against Iran in past for terror attacks.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was supposed to be present in the House to respond to the calling attention notice, did not turn up. The absence of the minister was also agitated by the opposition senators.

However, former chairman Senate Raza Raza Rabbani while citing the rules of business, contended that the prime minister should have been in the House to respond to the notice as his statement was quite sensitive. “If it had been restricted to a foreign, political issue, any minister could have responded by taking refuge under the rule of collective responsibility of cabinet in which a member of the cabinet can respond to the questions asked by the members but the issue at hand is quite sensitive,” he added.

Rabbani insisted that the prime minister should come to the House under the rules, but he seemed not ready to explain his statement regarding Iran as well as on the National Action Plan (NAP) before the parliament.

To this, Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani explained that the rules were clear that any minister could respond to the questions asked by the members, and if Rabbani wanted to abolish the rules, an amendment might be made.

Senator Shahi said that the prime minister had promised that he would come to the Senate but that ‘glorious day’ never came despite passage of nine months.

Leader of the House Shibli Faraz said that Rabbani himself used to run the House like a ‘Military Academy’ and never allowed any one to speak on a point of order unless the agenda of the day was exhausted. “But that very chairman along with three-four members, not all, has made it a routine that they should stage a walkout under one pretext or another, which is not acceptable,” he made it clear.

Sanjrani said that eversince the zero hour was introduced in 2014, not a single prime minister ever bothered to come to the House to respond to queries and that he had no executive powers to summon the prime minister to be present in the House to personally respond to points raised by members.

Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of JUI-F said that the prime minister and the foreign minister should explain their statement about Pakistani soil being used for terror attacks against Iran.

Meanwhile, Senate passed ‘The Elections (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019’ to amend the election act 2017 in haste after the opposition staged a walkout. But when the count was made moments after the bill was adopted, there were only 23 members, which forced the chair to adjourn the House till Thursday morning.

Speaking on the bill, Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Azam Sawati said that the bill was about an insertion of Article 2-A in the Act, which National Assembly had already passed unanimously.

He said the new insertion deals with the issue of delimitation of the constituencies, adding the elections are going to be held in 16 constituencies of erstwhile federally administrated tribal areas (Fata) in the coming days and the Election Commission of Pakistan had to work a lot in this regard.

Speaking on a point of public importance about terrorists attack on police outside Data Darbar in Lahore, PPP Senator Sherry Rehman said that terrorism had been escalating in the month of Ramazan but the House and opposition parties had not been taken into confidence regarding implementation of NAP, neither had the prime minister issued any statement in this regard.

She said that it took nine months for the National Security Committee of the Parliament to be formed. She demanded that prime minister should be pressed to attend the Senate and asked, “why does he not visit the Senate despite inflation, poverty and terrorism remain massive challenges”.

Senator Sherry charged that the government was unable to grasp that the debt-laden country was sinking into an economic quagmire with each passing day. Bread and pulses have become unaffordable while parents are unable to send their children to schools due to expensive conveyance costs after the gas and petrol price hikes,” she noted.

“Moreover, we hear that the FBR has received dollars 400 million from the World Bank to bring tax reforms to raise tax compliance, which can take Pakistan’s revenue potential to 26 percent of GDP but what is happening on ground? Instead of bringing the elite into the tax net, amnesty schemes are being introduced to whiten black money and cater to friends’ lobbies,” she alleged.

She said that for eight months, the government kept dithering over taking a decision regarding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) package and now the conditionalities had become more stringent, adding simultaneously, Pakistan’s future and governance had been “auctioned off” after appointing parachute officials from international agencies which is unprecedented for this country.

“These officials will now be involved in all the decisions from budget-making and commodity prices to interest rates and debts. Clearly, the government’s new master is IMF,” she argued.

Senator Mushtaq Ahmed moved a privilege motion against a Colonel of Fortier Constabulary (FC) for stopping him from going to district Orazkai to address an election rally there after getting permission from the local administration.

He said that he was going to Orakzai district but at the district border, FC personnel stopped him, saying that they had an order from an FC Colonel that he could not go for the rally. The video of the entire episode was destroyed by the personnel, who allegedly misbehaved with him and others along with him, including the JI district amir and driver. They staged a sit-in against it but they remained unmoved. He insisted that Article-15 allowed him to go to any part of Pakistan and under Article-16 he could hold any political activity.

“If this remained the attitude of law enforcement agencies, for whom we have a lot of regard and respect for their sacrifices, people would be forced to resort to take extreme steps like a woman in Mohmand district, who had shot dead an FC man on tried to forcibly enter her house and rape her. The trespasser, he continued, ignored the copies of the Holy Quran put forward by kids inside to halt his forward movement. In the meantime, she telephoned relatives, as to what must she do and she was asked to kill the FC man, namely Muhammad Sharif from Kohistan.

He insisted that the authorities must take notice of such incidents, as these, if pushed under the carpet, would turn out to be a stigma for the entire institution. Sanjrani asked him to see him in his chamber so that he could find a solution to the matter.