July 04, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 18, 1428

ISLAMABAD July 3: A constitutional package proposing greater provincial autonomy is in limbo despite claims by various government functionaries that a bill will be ready for submission in the coming session of parliament.

In an interview with a private television channel on Monday, the president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, denied that the bill would be moved in the next National Assembly session, saying that it could not go ahead for legislation until he submitted his report as chairman of the parliamentary committee concerned.

Mr Hussain hinted at extension by one year of the tenure of the assemblies.

Seats falling vacant due to the opposition’s resignations would need to be filled through by-election, he said.

Earlier, Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Salim Saifullah Khan had claimed that the constitutional package had been prepared and submitted to Mr Hussain and it would take the shape of a bill for submission in the next session of parliament.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi had said the opposition would be approached fro passing the amendment.

Mr Hussain blamed the opposition members of the parliamentary committee for the four-year delay in finalisation of recommendations on provincial autonomy. He said the opposition members had violated an understanding not to abstain from the committee’s meetings.

The parliamentary committee on Balochistan was formed on the proposal of Mr Hussain, who was the prime minister in 2004, to settle within six months the administrative issues of the province and recommend extension of provincial autonomy to the satisfaction of the four provinces.

Responding to a question regarding his dialogue with the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa administrators, the PML chief alleged that the Islamabad administration had sabotaged his agreement on eight out of nine points by adopting delaying tactics in reconstruction of seven mosques.

He said a statement that an operation against the two religious institutions could be launched if the media guaranteed that no blood would be screened had been wrongly attributed to President Pervez Musharraf.

About recent defections of PML MPAs in Punjab, he said it was not abnormal in political parties but only those had left who had failed to satisfy their constituents and who did not expect to get party tickets for the next elections.

In response to a question, Mr Hussain admitted that although there was a parliamentary system in the country, Gen Musharraf was leading the party and the government.

He rejected reports of divisions in his party and termed the quitting of former minister Nilofar Bakhtiar a ‘battle of women’.

He dismissed reports of efforts to replace PML secretary-general Mushahid Hussain by Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid, saying that the party had elected its president and secretary-general and they could not be shuffled trivially.

He said he and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi had helped PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif reach the Prime Minister’s House but he had left the country under a deal on his own.

Mr Hussain said he was more democratic in running his party than PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.