January 23, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 13, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Jan 22: Opposition members in the Senate on Tuesday discussed the plan to requisition session of the upper house and finalised a tentative six-point agenda for it, sources told Dawn.

The sources said the Opposition Leader in the Senate Raza Rabbani soon after his arrival in Islamabad held talks with the parliamentary leaders of all the opposition parties having representation in the Senate, in which they agreed in principle to submit the requisition notice, most probably on Thursday.

Under the constitution, chairman of the Senate is bound to convene the session within 14 days of the submission of the requisition notice.

A source in the PPP said that as the party would be observing the chehlum of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Feb 7, therefore, there was a possibility that the government might convene the session on that day to keep the party senators from taking part in the proceedings.

Meanwhile, the sources said Mr Rabbani was also planning to move a privilege motion in the house for violation of the constitution because of the failure of the Senate to meet for a minimum of 90 days in a parliamentary year. The Senate is still short of 55 days to meet the constitutional requirement, whereas only 49 days are left in the completion of the parliamentary year that will on March 11.

PPP’s secretary for parliamentary affairs Izhar Amrohvi told this reporter that 36 members had already signed the requisition notice. He said the opposition had almost finalised the agenda for the session to be requisitioned by them, which included discussion on many important issues like prevailing law and order situation with particular reference to the increase in the incidents of suicide attacks in the country, situation in tribal areas, assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and ongoing power and wheat crisis.