ISLAMABAD: The ruling PML-N has agreed to offer the chairmanship of a Senate functional committee to the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), according to sources.

The lone senator of the BNP-M, Dr Jahanzeb Jamaldini, is expected to be elected chairman of the functional committee on rules and privileges when it will meet on Tuesday (today) to elect its head.

PML-N Senator Saleem Zia, who had earlier been elected chairman of the committee, has already resigned not only as chairman but also as member of the committee.

Sources in the PML-N say that Mr Zia is likely to be given some other important position in the Senate for the sacrifice he has rendered by tendering his resignation on the directive of the party’s leadership.

Traditionally, chairmanship of Senate committees is awarded to political parties in accordance with the number of their seats in the 104-member house. Given the total number of standing and functional committees of the house, each party should get chairmanship of a committee for every three of its senators.

When contacted, Dr Jamaldini neither denied nor confirmed that he had been offered chairmanship of the committee by PML-N. “Let’s see who is elected chairman tomorrow,” he said.

When asked whether he was sitting on the treasury or opposition benches in the Senate, he said he could support the government as well as the opposition, depending upon the issue.

But a senator belonging to the opposition PPP said that Dr Jamaldini was being given chairmanship of the committee from the government’s quota, which indicated that the BNP-M had joined the treasury benches and was now a part of the ruling coalition.

Mr Zia, when contacted, simply said that he had resigned from the committee on the directive of the party leadership.

The elections of heads of the 40 standing, functional and special committees of the Senate were completed on May 26 – two weeks after the expiry of the stipulated time.

Under the rules, the committees are required to become functional within two months of taking oath by new members after Senate elections. Since the new senators were sworn in on March 12, the elections of chairpersons of all committees were required to be completed by May 12.

But the elections of chairmen of the committees were delayed because of differences among the government and the opposition parties over the chairmanship of choice committees.

The PML-N is now heading eight committees, followed by five headed by PPP, four by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and three by the Awami National Party. The PML-Q, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) have got chairmanship of two committees each.

One member each of the BNP-Awami, the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and the National Party from Balochistan and the PML-Functional from Sindh has been elected head of different committees.

Four independents, three of them from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, have also been elected chairmen of various committees.

The important committees headed by PML-N are water and power (Iqbal Zafar Jhagra), foreign affairs (Nuzhat Sadiq) and law and justice (Javed Abbasi).

The PPP has got chairmanship of the committees on interior (Rehman Malik), finance (Salim Mandviwala) and parliamentary affairs (Saeed Ghani).

The important committees being headed by the MQM are human rights (Nasreen Jalil), cabinet division (Tahir Mashhadi) and ports and shipping (Mohammad Ali Saif).

Shibli Faraz and Mohsin Aziz of the PTI are heading the committees on commerce and textile industry, respectively.

Before the March elections of the Senate, almost all important committees such as those on finance, defence, water and power, foreign affairs, law and justice, petroleum and natural resources and rules and privileges were headed by opposition members.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2015

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