KARACHI: Opposition plans strategy for budget session
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 15: The parliamentary parties of both the ruling coalition and the opposition in the provincial assembly held separate meetings here on Sunday to formulate their individual strategies for the Monday’s budget session.
Sindh Finance Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed will be presenting budget in the session which is to start at 2.30pm on Monday.
While the component parties of the ruling coalition discussed their own strategy, separate meetings were convened by the opposition alliance — Pakistan People’s Party, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and Jamaat-i-Islami — to review all options how to respond to the moves in the House. However, after apparently finalizing their strategies, they declined to divulge any of their decisions, taken in this regard, to the press.
The ruling coalition alliance (RCA), led by Chief Minister Ali Muhammad Mahar, on Saturday night met at the CM’s House but quite a good number of the parliamentary party MPAs could not attend the meeting. According to an insider, about 60 of the 97 RCA members were present there.
During the meeting, which lasted more than an hour, most of the time was consumed on the reported decision of the Indus River System Authority (IRSA). The discussion on the subject remained inconclusive before the meeting switched over to the budget session only to hear that the coalition alliance enjoyed a comfortable majority and as such it would face no problem in steering the budget through the House.
The Sindh cabinet is scheduled to meet in the morning to give approval to the budget 2003-04 before its presentation in the House.
The opposition parliamentary parties have decided to hold a joint meeting in the morning to finalize a coordinated response to the budget speech.
Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, while discussing its strategy, reviewed pressing issues like water shortage, construction of Thal canal, as well as the recent killing of a former speaker of Sindh Assembly, Abdul Raziq Khan.
Nasrullah Shaji, Deputy Parliamentary Party leader of MMA, told Dawn that the alliance would not disappoint the masses and that its MPAs’ attitude in the assembly would reflect the aspiration of the electorates. He said the MMA’s response to the budget speech would be determined according to the attitude of the treasury benches.
On its part, Jamaat-i-Islami said that it would not oppose the budget for the sake of the opposition but would convey the feelings of the people keeping in view the ground realities.
The JI’s Sindh chief, Asadullah Bhutto (MNA) said after the party’smeeting on Sunday that the JI had set up a special cell to study the budget and inform the people how far the pressing issues had been taken care of in the budget.
Meanwhile, the PPP Parliamentarians, Sindh chapter, has deplored the authoritarian approach of the regime and vowed to register its anger and anguish inside and outside the assembly.
A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the parliamentary party which was held on Sunday at the residence of Nisar Khuhro, Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly.
The meeting resolved to continue the struggle for the supremacy of the parliament and respect for the 1973 Constitution.
It also discussed the mode of protest during the budget session amid speculations that the opposition in Sindh would not be lagging behind the opposition in Punjab and the National Assembly.
It noted that Gen Musharraf had reduced the prime minister to his subordinate and the governors were nothing more than the ‘sobedars’ of the Mughal period. The present regime has no desire and commitment to democratic dispensation and all pronouncements in this regard are a mere facade.
The meeting adopted several resolutions including the one condemning continued work on greater Thal canal project, killing of Raziq Khan and the government’s failure to apprehend the killers, continued detention of Asif Zardari and an upsurge in the incidents of kidnapping for ransom in the province.
