November 04, 2006	Saturday	Shawwal 11, 1427

KARACHI, Nov 3: The Sindh Assembly met on Friday morning to take up a heavy agenda of 29 items but was adjourned abruptly amid a charged atmosphere created by opposition’s protest over not being allowed to condemn Monday’s military operation in Bajaur Agency through a resolution.

A motion was moved by an opposition member to seek permission of the house to present the resolution on the air raid that killed more than 80 people in a religious seminary, which was destroyed during the operation. However, the treasury benches defeated the motion with 36 votes in favour and 66 against.

Provoked by the treasury benches’ attitude, the opposition tried to stage a walkout but the chair called it a day just 50 minutes after commencement of the first-day deliberations of the session.Soon after recitation from the Holy Quran and Na’at, Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah announced names of the Panel of Chairmen as the formal proceedings started.

He then gave the floor to Hameedullah Khan of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal who had submitted two resolutions with the assembly secretariat on Thursday. One of his resolutions pertained to condolence on for former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the other to the condemnation of the Bajaur incident. Other MMA members, including Maulana Umer Sadiq, Nasrullah Khan Shaji, Kulsoom Nizamani and Abdul Rehman Rajput had also submitted their resolutions on the incident.

When Hameedullah Khan was allowed to move a motion to seek relaxation of rules to present his resolutions out of turn, he tried to read out first the one condemning the Bajaur raid. The chair intervened and asked him to read out the resolution of condolence.

MMA leader Maulana Omar Sadiq also interrupted Hameedullah Khan to draw the chair’s attention to his own resolution, saying that he, too, had deposited a resolution on Bajaur incident on Thursday and, as such, he should be given the floor to present the same out of turn through relaxation of rules under Rule 211. Maulana Sadiq also showed a copy of his resolution, though it did not have signature of the secretariat staff to confirm its submission.

The speaker recalled his earlier ruling interpreting the Rule 179 that for moving a motion to present a resolution out of turn, a member has to submit the same in writing with the assembly secretariat at least two hours before commencement of the day’s proceedings.

Leader of the combined opposition in the house Nisar Khuhro and other PPP members, Syed Qaim Ali Shah and Rafique Engineer, quoted from the ‘green book’ and cited Rules 103, 179, 59 and 72, and insisted that the speaker was very much empowered to allow members to move a motion, depending on the urgency, any time during the course of the proceedings.

The speaker, without changing his ruling on the definition of Rule 179, allowed Maulana Sadiq to move his motion for seeking permission of the house to present his resolution out of turn.

Law Minister Iftikhar Ahmed Chaudhry maintained that the resolution could be taken up on Tuesday, a private members day, through a vote.

Minister for Local Government Mohammad Hussain also opposed the motion, saying the resolution should be moved in normal course. He said the (treasury) members might not oppose the resolution.

Many members, including Nisar Khuhro, Nasrullah Shaji, Maulana Omar Sadiq, Abdul Rehman Rajput, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Ghulam Qadir Chandio, Zahid Bhurgari, Yunus Barai and Irfanullah Marwat started speaking at a time. Bano Saghir also started speaking without the chair’s permission.

The house was put to order by the speaker who issued warning that if discipline was violated any more, he would adjourn the proceedings.

He then put the motion to vote. When the house rejected it, many opposition members stood up and started raising slogans of “shame… shame…” and “Down with US agents”. Nasrullah Shaji, without the chair’s permission, gave an emotional speech and announced that the opposition was going to stage a token walkout against the attitude of the treasury benches.

As the opposition members were about to move out of the house, the speaker called it a day after ordering that Nasrullah Shaji’s speech be expunged.

The House will now meet on Monday morning.

It was noted that the treasury member, Syed Murad Ali Shah of the PML-Q, abstained from the vote.

Earlier, the house offered fateha for the departed souls, including ex-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, victims of Bajaur air strike, the policemen killed in a bomb blast in Quetta, victims of dengue fever, ex-additional advocate general Syed Sarfaraz Ahmad, elder brother of Senior Minister Syed Sardar Ahmad, Secretary General of JUP Lt-Gen (r) K. M. Azhar and former legislator Mir Darya Khan Khoso. They also prayed for the early recovery of nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan.

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