QUETTA: Despite lack of quorum in the house, the Balochistan Assembly passed two resolutions on Saturday evening demanding withdrawal of agriculture tax and condemning firing at the residence of Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan of the Supreme Court in Lahore.

Eight members from the treasury and opposition benches were present in the house when both the resolutions were moved and none of the members informed the chair about the lack of quorum in the legislature.

In the absence of Speaker Raheela Hameed Khan Durrani, a member of panel of chairmen, Yasmin Lehri, was presiding over the session.

The majority of treasury members went out of the house soon after Chief Minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo left the assembly after making his speech.

The lack of quorum has become the order of the day in the Balochistan Assembly since the change of government in the province. Most of the sessions were adjourned by the speaker for want of quorum.

Earlier, the members approved a report of the house’s standing committee which proposed conducting an investigation into the irregularities in recruitments in the education department in 2016, and an action against the officials responsible for the fiasco.

While taking the floor, Chief Minister Bizenjo said that the government had no powers to keep any

candidate on the waiting list and it also could not appoint any candidate on the basis of NTS test of 2015 in 2018.

He, however, informed the house that appointment letters of 407 successful candidates would be issued within a week.

“The remaining candidates should prepare for appearing in the next test,” he said and added that no politics was being done on the issue.

Mr Bizenjo asked why those who were in government in 2015 had committed an injustice with the candidates.

He deplored opposition members who were criticising the present government on the issue and said that after sitting on the opposition benches they were considering themselves “neat and clean”.

He said the leaders who had ordered baton-charge of protesting doctors when they were in power were now asking the present government to accept their demands. Speaker Raheela Hameed Khan Durrani had sent the issue to the house standing committee a week ago.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2018