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| December 8, 2005 | Thursday | Ziqa’ad 5, 1426 |
Opposition holds protest against NA speaker
ISLAMABAD, Dec 7: Opposition leaders on Wednesday staged a demonstration outside the Parliament House building in protest against National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain for “not allowing discussion on national issues and running the house for three days a week”.
Talking to a group of reporters after the demonstration, the opposition leaders regretted that the speaker had been killing their important motions and resolutions in his chamber and depriving them of their right to raise important national issues on the floor of the house.
Those who participated in the protest included Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Khawaja Asif of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), Liaquat Baloch, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri and Hanif Abbasi of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), Abdul Rauf Mengal of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) and Syed Khurshid Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar, Naheed Khan, Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, Qamaruz Zaman Kaira, Nayyar Bokhari, Fozia Wahab, Qurban Ali Shah and Manzoor Wassan of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP).
The opposition members said that they had submitted various motions and resolutions to the National Assembly secretariat to discuss issues such as price-hike, construction of controversial Kalabagh dam, increase in oil prices and relief activities in the earthquake-hit areas.
They said that despite the fact the opposition had submitted a heavy agenda for the National Assembly session, the speaker was running the house for three days a week.
The opposition leaders said that they would continue their protest on the floor of the House when the National Assembly would meet again on Thursday morning.
PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that the rulers had made the Parliament House irrelevant to all the issues. He went on to say that soon a meeting of the opposition leaders would be convened to discuss the option of resigning from parliament.
“We will see whether we should remain a part of parliament or not,” he said.
Earlier, the opposition leaders also held an unusual meeting in a committee room of the Parliament House to discuss the future strategy to be adopted during the National Assembly session.
Sources told Dawn that the meeting was attended by 68 members of the PPP, the PML-N and the MMA.
According to the sources, the opposition members resolved to give a tough time to the government on the floor of the house.
A woman PPP MNA said the image of the opposition had been tarnished in the eyes of the people of Pakistan, who had started even doubting the sincerity of the opposition politicians. She was of the view that the government should not be given any relaxation during the National Assembly session.
The opposition members decided that in the future they would make no compromise on the quorum issue and quorum would be pointed out whenever the government would fail to maintain it. They also called for activating members of the House Business Advisory Committee.
The members of the ARD and the MMA also stressed the need for enhancing cooperation among the two alliances during the sessions. They were of the view that the opposition should show complete unity in its ranks and there should be unanimity among them on all issues.
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