NA, Senate to separately discuss Altaf’s address today

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly and Senate will separately discuss the address of MQM leader Altaf Hussain that he delivered for his party’s annual convention held in Dallas (US) on Saturday late evening. Both the houses will be having their sessions today (Monday) afternoon.
Parliamentary sources told The News that different political groups are mulling to bring resolutions for condemnation of the views expressed by Altaf Hussain that are detrimental for the country. It is likely that Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan would give a policy statement in either of the Houses. The government wouldn’t oppose a debate on the obnoxious speech of the MQM leader.
The sources said that MQM members of both the Houses would be provided an opportunity to offer defence of their leader’s assertions during the debate. In the meanwhile, a high-level meeting will be held in the PM House today where certain issues of national significance would come under discussion, including the speech of MQM leader that has raised a question mark against the MQM i.e. if it could continue to work as a legitimate political party if it owns the views of Altaf Hussain. The meeting would be chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and attended by federal ministers Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Senator Pervaiz Rashid, Professor Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Special Assistants to the PM (SAPMs) Professor Irfan Siddiqi, Dr. Syed Asif Saeed Kirmani, Barrister Zafarullah Khan and Adviser to the Prime Minister for National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, the sources added.