LAHORE, Dec 16: Minority parliamentarians gave a lukewarm response to the dialogue arranged here on Monday to help prioritize the issues related to them as only one of them attended it.

MNA Akram Gill, who had reached the venue too late, said he had not been conveyed the message properly.

Almost all participants in the dialogue stressed the need for political orientation of the newly-elected minority MPs as most of them were young and had not passed through proper political process.

National Council of Churches in Pakistan executive secretary Victor Azariah criticized the MPs’ attitude and said their absence showed that they were not representatives of minorities.

Expressing his reservations on the mode of election of minority MPs, he however urged the need for continuing the process as long as some better solution was not found.

He also drew the attention of the Christian community leaders towards giving ideas that were national and not limited to their community.

Diocese of Raiwind Bishop Rt Rev Samuel Azariah said the minority MPs were the representatives of the political parties which had selected them and they had not been voted to the assemblies by the community.

He said to solving socio-political problems facing the community it should approach those MPs for whom they had directly voted instead of depending upon the one nominated by political parties. He also urged the need for strengthening the political institutions for strengthening the nation itself.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan official Mahboob Khan said minority representatives would face difficulty in taking various political decisions due to their political inexperience and lack of political acumen.

He apprehended that they would toe the line of their superiors instead of delivering good for the community or the democracy.

He urged them to work for repeal of discriminatory laws and keep a good liaison with other MPs to enhance their influence.

MNA Gill defended the new system for electing representatives of minorities saying the earlier one had promoted the trend of changing of loyalties among the elected people.

It was for this reason that political parties ignored most of the old faces who had been changing loyalties in the past and gave chance to the new people, he argued.