October 25, 2003	Saturday	Sha’aban 28, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 24: As the approaching fasting month of Ramazan seemed already sending National Assembly members homeward, the lower house broke for a two-day recess on Friday after hardly any business as treasury benches failed to muster quorum after an opposition walkout.

The walkout by opposition parties to continue their prolonged campaign against President Pervez Musharraf’s Legal Framework Order (LFO) followed their usual desk-thumping and slogan-chanting from their seats for a few minutes.

But while the opposition members stormed out of the house chanting “go Musharraf go” and “no LFO no”, they left one colleague behind to point out lack of quorum while deputy speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub had already started the question hour as the first business on the day’s brief agenda amid the noisy protest.

Bells were rung for five minutes — to call any members who may have been in the lobbies — between two counts of members ordered by the chair to ascertain if the House had the necessary quorum of one-fourth, or 86 members, of its total 342-seat strength to be able to continue its proceedings.

But both counts, ordered on the request of Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali (PML-N, Faisalabad), showed the ruling coalition, which claims the support of nearly 200 members, had failed to maintain quorum in the absence of the protesting opposition, as has often happened since the present session began on August 20.

Deputy Speaker Yaqub, who was in the chair in the absence of Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, adjourned the House until 10am on Monday, which could be the first day of Ramazan if the new crescent is sighted on Sunday.

There was no official word yet about when the government would like to end the present session, which had convened with the main aim of completing the assembly’s mandatory 130 sittings in a parliamentary year that completes on Nov 10.

But parliamentary sources said many members of the house were keen to spend the Ramazan in their constituencies.

Friday’s brief sitting, which began late by one hour and lasted hardly 15 minutes, was marked by an exchange of hot words between Sher Ali, who complained his point of order about the lack of quorum was being ignored, and the deputy speaker, who accused the opposition member of using unparliamentary words that he expunged from the record of the proceedings.

The latest disruption of the House prevented Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz from introducing an important bill that seeks to eliminate revenue deficit and reduce public debt to a prudent level by effective public debt management.

Now the finance minister is expected to introduce the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Bill, 2003, which will make it mandatory to lay before parliament for scrutiny all government decisions heaving a material bearing on the country’s economy, in the next assembly’s sitting on Monday.