ISLAMABAD, April 27: The National Assembly will begin on Friday what is likely to be its pre-budget session that will put a revamped cabinet to an early test.
President Pervez Musharraf has summoned the lower house to meet at 10am on Friday after a recess of eight days and three days after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz made a reshuffle of his cabinet.
Sources said the assembly’s 35th session, which was likely to continue for 12 days, would be an opportunity for the country’s largest cabinet to prove if it could do better in parliament after the latest dressing down it received from the opposition during the last 13-day session that ended on April 19.
That session was marked by heated debates on the April 13 bomb attack on a religious rally in Karachi, the prevailing price hike in the country and the privatisation of the Pakistan Steel Mills and treasury benches could hardly match opposition onslaughts.
No big issue is on the new session’s agenda, but opposition sources said high prices of essential commodities and law and order, including the situation in Balochistan and North and South Waziristan, would be raised.
Opposition is likely to question the government about the outcome of police investigation into the Nishtar Park bombing.
Last Monday’s meeting between former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to plan their challenge to President Musharraf’s political future was also likely to echo in the session, the opposition sources said.
