August 12, 2006	Saturday	Rajab 16, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 11: The combined opposition on Friday staged an en bloc walkout from the Senate to protest the absence of ministers concerned from the house.

Opposition senators chanted slogans of “Resign Shaukat Aziz, resign! Resign prime minister, resign!” while leaving the house.

The upper house, which is running short of any worthwhile business for the last three sittings, had only one item agenda of question hour on the order of the day and as a routine it was to take up privileges and adjournment motions after the question hour.

The house admitted for debate an adjournment motion whereby the Leader of Opposition Mian Raza Rabbani had raised the question of Sindh government’s ban on teachers unions in educational institutions.

Minister of state for education said although she was opposed to the motion on technical grounds she would still welcome a discussion on it if the opposition so desired. The house decided to debate the motion on Saturday morning. As the question hour was over, Mian Raza Rabbani raised the question of the adjournment motion that was moved on Thursday with regard to PML workers attack on the Peshawar Press Club.

He said the said motion was deliberately deferred when the minister of state concerned left the house and he has done the same today.

Rabbani termed it total collapse of the so-called slogan of good governance and said there was no justification for Prime Minister Aziz to continue in office after the detailed judgment of the Supreme Court in the Pakistan Steel Mills case.

He said the prime minister should respond to the opposition’s debate on the said judgment instead of leaving it on his cabinet ministers.

He said the combined opposition was left with no option but to stage a protest walkout against this attitude of the government towards legislation.

PPP Parliamentarian’s Dr Safdar Abbasi said there was no justification for running both the National Assembly and Senate session at the same time to complete the 90 parliamentary calendar days when they had no legislative agenda.

He said already 26 articles of the constitution had been suspended and it would be better if the government suspends another article to decrease the number of parliamentary days if it was unable to bring any legislation to the parliament.

He said the Senate had not passed a single piece of legislation in the last six months whereas the government had promulgated as many as 54 ordinances.

After that opposition lawmakers left the house in protest.

Leader of the House Wasim Sajjad said the opposition’s only recourse was to put pressure on the government by staging walkouts from the parliament as it was unable to bring people out into the streets.

He said proof of the opposition’s meaningless hue and cry was that it never pointed out quorum when it was not there.