KARACHI, May 22: Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim on Monday demonstrated his strength in the provincial assembly when he led a procession of 43 MPAs to make quorum and run the house business without his key coalition partner, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.
The show of strength came amid reports of serious differences between the chief minister and the MQM that led the latter to keep most of its MPAs away from the deliberations of the whole current session.
With Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah in the chair, the house started the day’s proceedings at 11:20am, about two hours behind the schedule. He obliged everyone to speak till 12:50pm. As he announced commencement of the questions hour, it was the time for Zuhr break, and soon afterwards, at 12:55pm, the speaker read out the governor’s order to prorogue the session.
Earlier, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal succeeded in getting a resolution passed unanimously. The resolution recommended that the federal government be approached to seek an explanation from the German government over the mysterious death of Aamir Cheema in police custody in that country.
Monday’s proceedings were almost entirely consumed in discussing points of order as whenever the speaker tried to switch over to the order of the day, someone would seek permission to speak on his point of order.
Analysts described the prorogation order as the governor’s bid to avoid reverberations viz-a-viz the serious differences between the chief minister and a major coalition partner, the MQM.
Although, the chief minister had entered the house with 43 members with him, the number of his supporters swelled to 45 when the speaker called for recitation from the Holy Quran. The two members were Faisal Sabzwari and Shakir Ali of the MQM. Opposition members, led by Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, then entered the house.
After fateha was offered for MPA Dr Manzoor Leghari of the treasury benches, and ex-MPA Khalifa Mohammad Aqil, Mr Khuhro asked for the chair’s ruling on the validity of the Friday deliberations, arguing that Deputy Speaker Rahila Tiwana had presided over the proceedings despite lack of quorum.
He also drew the speaker’s attention to the unparliamentary remarks passed by Minister Irfanullah Marwat against opposition member Munawwar Ali Abbasi, and requested that the remarks be expunged.
The speaker ruled that proceedings of the house could only be started when quorum was complete. He also held out the assurance that he would go through the video recording of the Friday proceeding and if any unparliamentary remarks were found to have been made, the same would be expunged.
Law Minister Iftikhar Chaudhry, claiming that at least 50 members, including 15-16 on the opposition benches, were present in the house when fateha was being offered but the opposition had not only attempted to break the quorum, but also left the house without participating in the fateha.
The chief minister maintained that even if the quorum was not complete, the opposition should have upheld the parliamentary tradition.
Mr Khuhro said as the session had been summoned by the government, the opposition had been waiting for the start the proceedings. He recalled that the coalition, in the case of a requisition session, would never try to complete the quorum until the arrival of opposition members.
Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that house proceedings should be held in accordance with the rules of business. In this context, he pointed out that the chief minister started making his statement before the chair could allow discussion on demolition of goths on Makhdoom Jamiluz Zaman’s adjournment motion which, he said, was a violation of rules.
When the chief minister defended his act, the speaker ruled that a chief minister or minister could make statement on the floor of the house on any subject at any time under Rule 215.
KARACHI, May 22: Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim on Monday demonstrated his strength in the provincial assembly when he led a procession of 43 MPAs to make quorum and run the house business without his key coalition partner, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.
