ISLAMABAD, Aug 5: The opposition parties fear that the government will fail to meet the requirement of article 54(2) of the Constitution mandating the National Assembly to meet for a minimum of 130 days in a parliamentary year.

The current parliamentary year began on Nov 12 and since then the NA has met only for 47 days with only 100 days left now to complete the remaining mandatory 83 sittings.

“This is something difficult, if not impossible”, said Izhar Amrohvi, the secretary of the ARD parliamentary group, while talking to Dawn. He said the government could take advantage of the law, under which Saturday and Sunday were counted as the working days, if the session was adjourned on Friday to meet again on Monday.

He said the failure in this regard was that of the Jamali government as it showed that it had no legislative agenda.

He said the opposition believed that the parliament was incomplete without a president elected in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Constitution. Moreover, the Constitution does not allow a person in uniform to hold the office of the president, he added.

Meanwhile, sources said the government was planning to convene the National Assembly session in the first week of August but had to postpone the session fearing strong protest by the opposition parties as it could not reach a settlement with the MMA on the issues of LFO and president’s uniform.

They said the government thought that the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal would not take part in the protest with the component parties of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy after holding first round of talks with them.

However, when Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed announced that the MMA would continue its protest against the Legal Framework Order inside the house if the government convened the National Assembly session without presenting the promised Constitutional package, it had to change its decision.

The PML-Q chief, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, on Sunday said the next session of the assembly could not be delayed for indefinite period and it had to be convened within three or four days.

Meanwhile, the opposition parties also criticized the performance of Senate as it only met for 12 days in the past five months. Under the Constitution, Senate is required to be in session for 90 days in a calendar year.