Senate session prorogued amid boycott by opposition
By Ahmed Hassan
ISLAMABAD, Aug 22: The Senate was prorogued after a 19-day session as the combined opposition continued its boycott for the second day on Tuesday. Conciliation efforts made by Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro did not bear any fruit as PML’s Kamil Ali Agha and other hawks refused to offer an apology for the language used against opposition leaders during Monday’s uproar on the issue of reported replacement of Quaid’s portrait with that of Maulana Mufti Mehmud in the parliament chamber of the leader of opposition.
The upper house which started its business two and a half hours late because of the conciliation efforts, disposed of a six-item agenda within an hour without any hindrance.
The house passed a bill amending the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Ordinance 2002 (The Pakistan Electronic media Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2006) as finalised by a mediation committee comprising members of the lower and upper houses.
The bill was referred to the mediation committee after the Senate had refused to approve it without debate. Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamil Ali Agha tabled the bill.
Earlier, chairman Senate went to the opposition chamber and held a meeting with the Leader of Opposition, Mian Raza Rabbani, Prof Khurshid Ahmed who briefed him on what had happened in the house in his absence.
The opposition leaders later attended an advisory committee meeting which, after about an hour, was called off as both sides stuck to their positions.
The opposition wanted an apology from treasury members as a condition for returning to the house, but the senators of the ruling coalition rejected the demand.
Minister for inter-provincial coordination Salim Saifullah Khan ridiculed the demand of secret voting on opposition’s no-trust motion against the prime minister and said that the MMA government itself had used the show of hands in the provincial local government elections.
He said the government was sincerely trying to provide protection to womenfolk from injustices in the application of law by providing death sentence and imprisonment of up to 25 years for raoists.
The house passed without debate or any amendment the Marriage Functions (prohibition of) and ostentations display and Wasteful Expenses (Amendment) bill 2006 as passed earlier by the National Assembly.
Amjad Abbas of the PML informed the house that while the opposition was denying the correctness of the report about the replacement the Quaid’s portrait the reporter concerned was insisting that it was correct and was claiming to have himself witnessed it along with two other journalists and a senior MMA leader.
Speaking on a point of order, Mr Abbas suggested that House adopt a resolution calling upon the government to immediately start building the Kalabagh dam to stop rainwater from flowing into the sea and provide the country with additional water and power resources.
Leader of the House Wasim Sajjad supported the suggestion but did not agree with the proposal of moving a resolution.
Muhammad Abbas Kumaili of the MQM strongly condemned MMA leaders action in the National Assembly on Monday during which they tore the copies of a bill containing words as Holy Quran, Islam and Pakistan.
He demanded registration of cases under blasphemy law against the MMA MPs.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao in a statement called for disposing of an adjournment motion of Prof Khurshid Ahmed pending since June 2005 and said that police performance had improved over the past one year and no incident concerning security of VIPs’ movement had been reported.
He claimed that large gangs of robbers had been busted, 156 criminals arrested and 120 cases registered during the year. Besides, a huge quantity of narcotics has been seized.
