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| June 3, 2005 | Friday | Rabi-us-Sani 25, 1426 |
Govt defeated in NA vote-count
ISLAMABAD, June 2: The government on Thursday suffered a defeat in a vote-count in the National Assembly when the opposition challenged its majority during the clause-by-clause passage of a bill. Leader of the Opposition Maulana Fazlur Rahman demanded government’s resignation by accepting the defeat and said at least the minister for parliamentary affairs should accept the responsibility of the humiliation and step down.
The combined opposition staged a token walk-out minutes before the Maghrib prayers in support of the 65,000 PTCL employees, who have been on strike against privatisation for 10 days.
The MMA, while joining the rest of the opposition, registered its protest against what was described as gruesome killing of a Karachi Jamaat-i-Islami leader, Aslam Mujahid, and government’s apathy towards the incidents of terrorism.
The house echoed with slogans of “Go Musharraf Go” and “No Musharraf No” when opposition members walked out of the house.
Speaker Amir Hussain Chaudhry was left with no choice but to announce adjournment of the house for Maghrib prayers almost half an hour earlier.
The opposition challenged the lesser number of treasury lawmakers when eleventh clause of the bill was put to vote.
As the speaker ordered vote count, the government and the opposition rushed out to bring their respective members in the house. Consequently, the opposition side, which had several dozens of its followers sitting in the lobbies, outnumbered the treasury benches.
The speaker announced the number of opposition members, but withheld announcement of the number of treasury members and gave chance to the minister of parliamentary affairs to negotiate with the parliamentary leaders of the opposition.
Dr Sher Afgan, according to leader of the opposition Maulana Fazlur Rahman, requested the opposition leadership to allow legislation after conceding government’s defeat.
Opposition lawmakers caused huge uproar against delay in the announcement of vote count as they chanted slogans to press the speaker to disclose the number of opposition members present.
Not only the ruling PML president Chaudhry Shujaat was absent from the house, but none of the senior ministers were present in the house.
Taking the floor after government’s defeat, PPP Parliamentarians Shah Mehmood Qureshi said: “This defeat reflects the fast crumbling support for this government.” He said it was the first time that a ruling party (PML-Q’s) ministers and MPAs were boycotting the assembly proceedings.
The speaker delayed the legislative business, which included two more bills, one for the establishment of the National Institute of Oceanography and other for the establishment of Pakistan Council for Science and Technology. He asked first mover of the adjournment motion seeking debate on the recent explosions at Bari Imam and Karachi, and the killing of a political party leader.
However, this announcement led to another commotion and Raja Parvez Ashraf of the PPP Parliamentarians announced to stage a token walk out against the potential danger to 65,000 PTCL employees in the wake of its privatization.
Earlier, the opposition strongly opposed the bill seeking to establish the Pakistan Council of Research in water resources on the ground that the council would only be a burden on the exchequer.
MMA’s Liaqat Baloch, PPP Parliamentarians’ Aitzaz Ahsan and a treasury member, Khanzada Abdul Qadir, opposed the bill because it was an attempt to keep the experts out of the council.
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