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| July 23, 2005 | Saturday | Jumadi-us-Sani 15, 1426 |
Opposition may requisition Senate session: Rabbani
ISLAMABAD, July 22: Opposition Leader in the Senate Mian Raza Rabbani on Friday said the opposition parties were holding consultations and considering the option to requisition the session of the Upper House. Speaking at a press conference with senators Enver Baig and Farooq Naek, the opposition leader criticized the government for postponing the Senate session in an unprecedented manner.
“Perhaps, it will be the first and unique incident in the world’s parliamentary history that the session of the parliament has been postponed without meeting even for a single day,” Mr Rabbani said.
The PPP senator alleged that the session had been postponed as the government did not have the courage to face the opposition on various burning issues. He claimed that there were reports that ministers, particularly those belonging to the Senate, had requested the prime minister to postpone the Senate session as they said it would be difficult for them to face the opposition in the prevailing situation in the country.
Mr Rabbani said the government’s decision to postpone the Senate session had strengthened the impression that the parliament had been made a redundant institution in the country. He said the country was facing serious crises. He said it was the practice all over the world that the session of the parliament was called to develop a consensus whenever the country faced crisis situation.
Mr Rabbani said the government was only advancing the agenda of an individual and the rulers were not ready to face political dissents.
He said the opposition had planned to raise various issues in the Senate session, including pre-poll rigging in the forthcoming local government elections. Similarly, he said, the opposition also wanted to discuss the issue of terrorism particularly after the London bombings. He said the opposition was to highlight on the floor of the house that how the government was using war against terrorism to suppress the opponents in the country.
Mr Rabbani said the opposition wanted to ask the government to explain as to why the visit of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to the US was cancelled. He said this issue could create an embarrassing situation for the government. He said the US had accepted India as a nuclear power, and Pakistan despite being a frontline partner in the war against terrorism did not figure anywhere.
Mr Rabbani said the opposition was also planning to raise the issue of train accident in Ghotki.
He said despite a major disaster in which three main trains collided at Ghotki resulting in the killings of a large number of people, the railways minister did not show the moral courage to tender his resignation and made the assistant station master a scapegoat.
He said failure of the government to find a suitable person for the office of the Senate deputy chairman showed that the ruling PML was facing internal rifts.
Pre-poll rigging: Members of the Election Monitoring Committee of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) could not meet acting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar on Friday, as he was busy in Karachi in connection with some arrangements for the local government elections.
The members of the committee had announced on Thursday, in a press conference, that they would hold a meeting with the acting CEC on Friday to apprise him about the ongoing “pre-poll rigging” in the forthcoming local bodies polls.
A spokesman for the PPP told Dawn that now the meeting was scheduled to be held on Monday.
PPP Senator Sardar Latif Khosa is the chairman of the committee and its members include Senator Enver Baig, MNA Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, Palwasha Behram, B.A. Malik and Nazir Dhoki.
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