|
|
|
| December 7, 2005 | Wednesday | Ziqa’ad 4, 1426 |
NA session: opposition to discuss protest plan
ISLAMABAD, Dec 6: Opposition members in the National Assembly will hold an emergency meeting at the Parliament House on Wednesday to discuss the mode of protest against the government’s decision to run the session of the lower house for three days a week.
Parliamentary secretary for the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) Izhar Amrohvi told Dawn that the meeting would be attended by members of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) and would likely to be presided over by Makhdoom Amin Fahim.
He said the opposition members had decided to take up the issue very seriously as the government had made it a routine to run the house for three days a week and count all the seven days as the working days.
PPP MNA Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan had on several occasions raised the issue on the floor of the house and protested over this practice.
He had even written a letter to the speaker asking him to run the house on five days a week basis.
In his letter, Mr Ahsan had also described this practice as an “abuse of the constitution” which provided a relaxation that if the house had to be adjourned for two days, then the sandwiched holidays would also be considered as the working days. He said the government was misusing this relaxation given in the constitution only to fulfil the requirement of another clause of the constitution under which the National Assembly was required to be in session for 130 days in a calendar year.
Meanwhile, a source in the opposition parties told Dawn that the members were also planning to hold a demonstration outside the Parliament House on Wednesday morning to register their protest.
|
|
|
|
