ISLAMABAD, Nov 11: The government blew hot and cold in the National Assembly on Friday as it sought to persuade sceptical opposition parties to join a proposed parliamentary committee to oversee earthquake relief.

The ruling coalition’s two-sided approach became evident when one minister questioned Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s position as opposition leader shortly after another had repeatedly urged the opposition parties to accept Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s invitation to join the committee.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi criticized the Maulana for boycotting the National Security Council and asked him to quit his office on ‘moral grounds’ as he did not enjoy majority support among opposition members.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao’s urgings earlier for cooperation in the formation of the committee followed reservations voiced by the main opposition parties on Thursday about what they see as a belated move after the government had already made key decisions unilaterally.

“We have no political motive (in the move) and we only want to discuss rehabilitation and reconstruction (in the committee),” he said about the purpose of the body while resuming a speech he had left unfinished on Thursday.

He recalled that formation of such a committee had initially been proposed by the opposition and said: “My request to the opposition is to cooperate with us in its formation.”

The minister assured the opposition that the committee would oversee the rehabilitation and reconstruction work in the quake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP.

There was no immediate response to Mr Sherpao’s appeal from the opposition parties.

Immediately after Mr Sherpao’s conciliatory remarks, a brief speech by People’s Party Parliamentarians’ Abdul Mujeeb Pirzada, who complained of perceived efforts to paint the National Assembly as a ‘failed institution’ and questioned the name of the President’s Relief Fund in a parliamentary system, was enough to invite a hard response from the parliamentary affairs minister.

Denying that any violation of the constitution had taken place when the federal relief commissioner was working under the prime minister, Mr Niazi directed his ire against Maulana Rehman, who had accused the president of violating the constitution by avoiding to address a joint sitting of parliament.

The minister said President Pervez Musharraf would have no hesitation to address parliament if there was an assurance of dignified behaviour from the opposition, which had staged noisy protests during the only previous such address in January last year.

Mr Afgan said Maulana Rehman should have attended NSC meetings in the light of an agreement under which the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal had supported the government in the passage of the 18th constitutional amendment that envisaged the council.

“He was made leader of opposition though he did not command the support of majority... and even now he does not command the majority support,” the minister said and added: “He should quit this office on moral ground.”

While the Maulana was not present in the house, none of his MMA colleagues responded to Mr Niazi’s demand.

Although Mr Sherpao’s speech was expected to have wound up nearly a month-old debate on the October 8 earthquake, members continued their speeches afterwards, before the house was adjourned until Monday.

From the PPP, Sherry Rehman complained that authorities were ‘diverting’ her party’s relief trucks to unintended destinations unlike the freedom of action enjoyed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Jamaat-i-Islami, while Naheed Khan called for allowing the involvement of civilian leadership, including former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

The Pakistan Muslim League’s Kashmala Tariq proposed the creation of a ‘crisis management ministry’ to handle natural calamities.

At the start of the proceedings, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Resources Mir Naseer Khan Mengal was found unprepared to reply to a call-attention notice and sought time until Monday to respond to three members’ complaint that the users of liquefied petroleum gas containing propane gas risked disorder of their nervous systems.

There was confusion over whether the subject fell in the domain of the petroleum ministry after Mr Niazi said the notice should have been addressed to the health ministry.

Farzeen Ahmed Sarfraz, one of the four authors of the notice, said the matter had been addressed also to the ministries of environment and science and technology though the assembly secretariat apparently directed it only to the petroleum ministry.

In response to another call-attention notice, Mr Niazi said that out of a total of about 100 unclaimed children brought from earthquake-stricken areas, 31 were still lodged in hospitals in Rawalpindi and Islamabad while the rest had been handed over to their parents or other relatives.

He said the government would not allow adoption of such children and would itself take care of them.

The notice by four PPP members had alleged that a number of children admitted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences had been handed over “without proper identification of their heirs”.

In response to another notice, the minister said a child whose custody had been given by the Edhi Trust to a singer in Karachi was not brought from the quake-hit area.