ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and PML-N on Tuesday staged together first token walkout in the National Assembly to register their protest against what was they claimed as manipulation and rigging in the election of the speaker.
The House witnessed a clear division on this occasion as the ARD component parties and the MMA walked out one after the other to leave behind the PML-Q led Grand National alliance, MQM, PML-F and other splinter groups of Tahirul Qadri, Imran Khan and Ijazul Haq.
First of all it was Amin Fahim, chief of the PPP who led his parliamentary group out of the House after condemning the dubious polling of votes by some members from the treasury’s supporters.
In the meantime, Chaudhry Aitizaz Ahsan met the MMA leaders Liaquat Baloch and others and persuaded them also to join the PPP and the PML-N in the token walkout.
A few minutes later, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, secretary-general of the MMA tried to speak on a point of order which was not allowed and he too signalled his colleagues for a walkout.
As the three groups came out they faced a large crew of press to respond questions. However, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Liaquat Baloch, Javed Hashmi and Aitizaz Ahsan got together and after discussing among themselves announced to return to the House after registering their protest.
Speaking to the newsmen Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Liaquat Baloch demanded a special house committee to investigate the rigging in speaker’s election.
Liaquat Baloch said: “In our view the sanctity of the House was hurt in the speaker’s election by adopting wrong methods for getting the official candidate through”.
He said we all are of the opinion that this all had been done under a calculated plan which we condemn.
Aitizaz Ahsan termed the incident as blackest day in the national history as after pre polling rigging the post-poll rigging has been brought to the National Assembly the supreme body of the country.
When asked whether the two alliances, the ARD and MMA, will close their ranks in the coming days in the elections of prime minister, Liaquat Baloch said yes we will hold talks on future cooperation.
It started soon after start of the counting of votes started, the polling agents of the opposition PPP Shah Mahmud Qureshi and others found one after the other blank papers from the ballot boxes.
Then it started one after the others as a number of doubtful/tendered votes were handed over to the presiding officer for rejection.
Before staging the walkout, the opposition parties took the presiding officer Illahi Bakhsh Soomro to task on allowing a MNA to poll his vote after the completion of the voters list on the plea that he had missed to cast his votes.
The presiding officer told the House after Zuhr prayers recess that a member wants to poll his vote as he claims to have missed casting his vote during the process.
He said a total of 328 votes were polled but the said member Sabir had failed to cast his vote.
