ISLAMABAD, Oct 21: The National Assembly is likely to witness an interesting legal battle on Friday when it takes up an opposition's no-confidence motion against Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain.
Parliamentary sources told Dawn that the government had decided that treasury members would not be in the house when the motion is taken up.
To implement this strategy, the ruling party has convened a meeting of its parliamentary group at a time when the National Assembly will be in session at 9am.
While Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is reported to have held meetings with possible dissenters within the ruling coalition till Thursday evening, two ministers confirmed that the coalition's parliamentary groups would hold a joint meeting on Friday morning at a time when the house is due to take up the no-confidence motion.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Sher Afgan Khan Niazi said the joint meeting had been set for 10am but Law, Justice and Human Rights Minister Mohammad Wasi Zafar said it would be held an hour earlier.
Dr Niazi told Dawn that it had been decided that only four ministers would be with the speaker in the house to face the opposition. Besides him, he said, Law Minister Wasi Zafar and their state ministers Chaudhry Shahid Akram Bhinder and Raza Hayat Harraj would accompany the speaker.
Asked what would happen if the opposition did not come to the house and the session was adjourned due to lack of quorum, Dr Niazi said the opposition's no-trust motion would automatically stand rejected. He said it would be written in the assembly record that "the leave could not be granted to move the resolution due to lack of quorum."
The minister said it was the responsibility of the opposition to maintain quorum in the house because they had moved the motion. Under the rules, he said, a debate on a motion could not be started without the support of at least 86 members.
He also said that Friday's was a special session and not a regular session and, therefore, its agenda could not be moved to the next session.
He denied an opposition allegation that the government was stopping its members from attending the session because it did not have trust in them and feared that some of them might vote against the party's policy.
"It is not a matter of trust because no responsibility lies with the government," he said, adding that the onus was on the opposition to bring 172 members to have their motion passed.
Law Minister Wasi Zafar said he had information that opposition had already decided not to vote on the motion and, therefore, there would be no question for the ruling coalition to vote or abstain from the process.
Meanwhile, Parliamentary Secretary for the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) Izhar Amrohvi said the ARD would finalize its strategy in a meeting at the Parliament House at 8am.
He said the ARD and the MMA would hold separate meetings before the session but there was also a possibility of a joint meeting.
When contacted, ARD leader and acting parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the new strategy of the government showed it did not trust its own members. "This reflects a no-confidence on their own members," he said.
Mr Khan said the government's decision to keep its members away from the debate exposed frustration and differences within the coalition.
He said the government was not ready to take any risk by allowing its members to cast their votes because there was a difference of only about 50 members in the strength of the two sides.
