PESHAWAR: Both the treasury and opposition benches appear to have lost interest in the ongoing session of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, which has been continuing for the last six months, the longest in the house’s history.

The assembly business on Monday lasted for 14 minutes only. The session was adjourned due to a lack of quorum for the second time in the current week without entertaining a single agenda item.

The house was scheduled to meet at 2:00pm but the session began at 3:46pm and ended at 4:00pm.

When the session began, only six lawmakers were in attendance, two on treasury benches and four on opposition benches.

After the recitation from the Holy Quran, the next item on agenda was question hour but it took five minutes to complete as only a single question mover, JUI-F’s MPA Syed Mufti Janan, was present.

The MPAs, whose questions were on the agenda but they were absent, included Abdul Karim Khan, Aneesa Zaib Tahirkheli, Zarin Gul, Sobia Shahid, Miraj Hamayun and Romana Jalil.

The questions related to the sports department moved by Amna Sardar were kept pending as the relevant minister was absent. Of the 14 questions on agenda, only one was taken up, while 11 lapsed and two were kept pending.

Calling attention notice of MPAs Lawmakers lose interest in drawn-out sitting Sobai Shahid and Mohammad Idrees also lapsed as they were not present in the house.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MPA Javed Naseem drew the speaker Asad Qaisar attention towards the incomplete quorum.

Only 21 members were present when the assembly’s staff counted them.

The speaker ordered the ringing of the bell for two minutes. However, the number of those in attendance didn’t increase leading to the adjournment of the session until Thursday.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Shops and Establishment Bill 2015 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Prohibition of Employment of Children Bill 2015 were placed on the agenda for the second time but the house didn’t pass them due to a lack of quorum.

Talking to Dawn, JUI-F MPA Shah Hussain Allai declared the ongoing assembly session unique saying after one day session, the speaker adjourned for five to seven days.

He said the ongoing assembly session was summoned in October 2014 which had been continuing and therefore, lawmakers had lost interest in the house’s business.

The MPA asked what the MPAs would be doing in Peshawar during the adjournment days as they had come from far-off districts of the province.

He said lawmakers couldn’t travel for 10 to 12 hours from their native towns to the city to attend the assembly session once a week.

When asked about the reason for the continuation of the assembly session for six months, Allai said under the Constitution, the election of the deputy speaker was a must during the ongoing session.

With the appointment of former deputy speaker Imtaiz Shahid as law minister, the post of the deputy speaker has been laying vacant.

The sources said it would be a violation of the Constitution if the speaker prorogued the session without the election of the deputy speaker.

They said differences in PTI over the next deputy speaker had delayed the election.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2015

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