Govt, opposition to head 20 standing panels each

ISLAMABAD: The federal government and opposition on Thursday reached consensus over the distribution of standing committees’ chairmanship.

The government and opposition, according to the agreed formula, will get the chairmanship of 20 committees each. The opposition has decided to give nine committees’ chairmanship to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), while as many as 10 would be distributed among Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).

The PPP leader Khursheed Shah met with Opposition Leader Shahbaz Sharif to consult over the distribution of committees to the opposition benches. Later in the day, the federal government and opposition finalised names for the standing committee chairpersons. The treasury benches have named 13 members, while the PML-N has named six.