ISLAMABAD, Aug 20: The government, in a surprise move, agreed in the Senate on Monday to allow seven bills of the opposition, one of which proposed to curtail the president’s powers to promulgate ordinances while the upper house of the parliament was in session.

Other proposals sought greater representation of the Senate in legislative business in the Council of Common Interests and deletion of section 12 of Article 137 of the Constitution.

The seven bills were drafted and submitted by opposition lawmakers Mian Raza Rabbani, Kamran Murtaza and Rehmatullah Kakar to the upper house secretariat in 2004, but the government had been sitting on them so far.

The Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Kamil Ali Agha, allowed the introduction of the bills, saying: “The passage of these bills will certainly depend on a ‘deal’ between the government and the opposition.”

The Leader of the Opposition, Mian Raza Rabbani, took the remark as an allusion to the Benazir-Musharraf talks and said: “Rest assured that no deal is going to be struck. The PML is spreading such rumours after losing hope to get votes in the coming elections.”

The Senate also allowed introduction of a bill piloted by Mian Raza Rabbani to provide for the ratification by the upper house of all treaties, contracts and trade protocols signed by Islamabad with other governments.

The bill, jointly moved by Kamran Murtaza and Rehmatullah Kakar, seeks amendment in clause (1) para (6) of Article 153 to ensure an equal representation of all provinces in the Council of Common Interests.

The Treasury’s Chaudhry Mohammad Anwar Bhinder laid in the house a report of a committee saying that the government had directed different departments to ensure follow-up action was taken on assurances made to legislators.In reply to a point of order by Enwer Baig of PPP Parliamentarians, the minister for privatisation informed the house that the KESC had taken steps to tide over a shortfall of over 700 megawatt.

The minister for religious affairs, Ijazul Haq, assured Sadia Abbasi of the PML-N that the committee named by the Supreme Court to examine complaints against private Haj operators, had cleared most of them.

He, however, regretted that a large number of Pakistanis had brought a bad name to the country by violating their visa conditions and staying back.

The Senate also completed a debate on the handling by the authorities of the situation arising out of the recent flood in Balochistan and Sindh.