December 22, 2006	Friday	Ziqa'ad 30, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 21: As the National Assembly is likely to take up another women protection bill in its next session, all eyes will be on the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) to see if it carries out its threat to resign in protest on the previous bill passed by the parliament.

If the MMA members show courage and resign, they will outshine the list of 14 MNAs, who have already tendered their resignations from the graduate assembly in the last four years, though only three of them followed the call of their conscience. For the other 11, it was either toeing party line or head for greener pastures.

The three MNAs who were bold enough to take the extreme step of resigning under protest were Dr Tahirul Qadri of Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT), Abdul Rauf Mengal of Balochistan National Party (BNP) and Sahibzada Haroonur Rashid of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI). All the three MNAs submitted their resignations in protest for various reasons.

Dr Tahirul Qadri quit his seat (NA-127) from Lahore as a mark of protest when the parliament approved a controversial bill that allowed Gen Pervez Musharraf to stay in the presidency with his uniform on.

The seat vacated by Dr Qadri was later won by Farooq Amjad Mir of the PML-Q, who also remained in the news as a spokesman for the so-called forward bloc that emerged against the Chaudhrys of Gujrat.

The second MNA who tendered his resignation in protest was BNP’s Abdul Rauf Mengal. Mr Mengal submitted his resignation to protest the killing of Baloch Sardar Nawab Akbar Bugti in a military operation in Kohlu.

Later, speaking at a news conference, Mr Mengal urged members of other opposition parties to resign from the parliament too, but no one paid heed to his request.

Sahibzada Haroonur Rashid Abbasi of the MMA was the third MNA to resign from the National Assembly. He quit his seat (NA-44 Tribal Area IX) to register his protest over the October 30 air strike on a Madressah in Bajaur in which over 80 students and teachers were killed.

Besides these, there were five MNAs who resigned from the National Assembly after winning the election of Nazims in their respective districts. Out of these five MNAs, four belonged to the opposition parties and one to the ruling PML-Q.

Interestingly, three of the opposition members joined the Inamul Haq Piracha and Mumtaz Matiana (NA-189) of the PPP and Jalil Sharaqpuri (NA-132) of the PML-N joined the ruling party and became nazims of Sargodha, Bahawalnagar and Sheikhupura, respectively.

Inamul Haq Piracha is the brother of former PPP minister Ihsanul Haq Piracha and his other brother Haroon Piracha contested the by-election on the PML-Q ticket and became MNA on his seat (NA-64) from Sargodha.

The seat vacated by Mumtaz Matiana and Jalil Sharaqpuri were also won by Ali Akbar Wains and Shahid Manzoor Gill, respectively, both from the PML-Q.

Abdul Qayyum Jatoi of the PPP also resigned his NA-180 seat to become the district nazim of Muzaffargarh, but he remained loyal to his party.

Similarly, Sardar Salim Jan Mazari of the PML-Q also quit his NA-210 seat to become district nazim of Jacobabad. This seat was later won by Ghalib Domki, also from the PML-Q.

Chaudhry Zafar Iqbal Warraich of the PPP set a new tradition in the country’s parliamentary history when he resigned from the National Assembly (NA-196 Rahimyar Khan) seat and contested the election again on the PML-Q ticket. He is presently the minister of state for interior.

Three members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) from Karachi simultaneously resigned from their seats reportedly on the directives of the party chief, Altaf Hussain. The MQM MNAs Sarkaruddin (NA-240), Sultan Ahmed Khan (NA-243) and Haji Azizullah Brohi (NA-246) were asked to submit resignations reportedly due to their poor performance as legislators.

Eman Wasim, daughter of Attock District Nazim Maj (retired) Tahir Sadiq and niece of PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, had to vacate her seat (NA-59 Attock) to provide a constituency to Shaukat Aziz to contest elections.

Similarly, Arbab Zakaullah also quit his NA-229 Tharparkar seat for Shaukat Aziz so that he could contest polls for the National Assembly. Later, Mr Aziz decided to retain his Attock seat and Arbab Zakaullah again became the MNA after winning the by-election.