LAHORE: The huge opposition could not oppose the new local government law in the Punjab Assembly as it appeared to be trapped in rules and regulations by Law Minister Raja Basharat and the ‘imposing’ Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

“Opposition’s amendments cannot be entertained as they were not submitted to the assembly within the stipulated time,” the law minister elaborated this when the speaker allowed presentation of the bill for second reading and PML-N’s Waris Kalloo opposed it.

“The amendments are not in order,” Raja Basharat said.

PML-N’s Malik Muhammad Ahmad tried to defend the opposition but in vain. He said the opposition was given a single copy at 6pm on the day when the standing committee’s report was verbally presented in the house. “Therefore the compulsion of two days does not apply to us,” he said.

The speaker did not agree to it despite the fact that the MPA presented other legal excuses in his defence. “Your amendments have legally been lapsed as you did not follow the required procedure,” Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi told Malik ahmad, adding nevertheless that the speaker had the powers to allow these amendments if “you admit your fault.”

As the PML-N MPA promptly complied with, the law minister said that the admission of the fault did not leave any room for any concession. He said the law was being passed while fulfilling all legal and constitutional requirements.

He said the opposition continued to give its opinion on the bill for three days during meetings of the standing committee concerned. And the treasury included their several amendments like tenure of the councils from the original five to four years, ending the clause about the qualification of mayors, equalising the number of professional and technical members, increasing the number of the municipal committees and tehsil councils and those of MPAs in the local government council. “We took them along at all stages,” he said.

He said it was the duty of the strongest opposition comprising 173 members to submit their amendments within the prescribed time limit. Their leadership should assess why the opposition could not do so, he said, adding he was opposing the amendments on legal grounds because the treasury wanted to run the house strictly according to the rules.

At this point the speaker recalled how, what he said, PML-N’s Samiullah Khan misbehaved with him on Monday and declared him a ‘thanedar.” Mr Khan was sternly disallowed to reply with a warning of also suspending his membership like his wife.

Finally Mr Waris Kalloo was allowed to speak and he said that Section 95-A of the assembly rules say that copies of the standing committees should be supplied to each member of the house, but was not done. The two-day condition could be applied only if this was done. The speaker disallowed this point.

Malik Muhammad Ahmad asked for circulation of the bill for eliciting opinion of people. He said the bill would wrap up the existing local governments which could not be done under Article 140-A of the constitution. The bill needs threadbare perusal by the house which was being disallowed. He said many previous governments system were abolished one after another but this could no longer be done under the 18th amendment to the constitution.

The law minister said getting the law passed not bad legislation. “Go and see outside the assembly thousands of bill boards hung by members of the local councils demanding new system. A delegation of local council vice chairmen had also met me last night to make the same demand,” he said.

He said the outgoing system was weak. The new system could empower people at the grass roots level. Under it, billions of rupees would be directly transferred to the panchayats and neighbourhood councils.

The speaker allowed the opposition to present a couple of amendments to the bill. Opposing them, the law minister said the PML-N did not want empowerment of local councils. They made the 2013 law but held elections when pressed by the Supreme Court in 2015. But the elected people were installed in 2017. The local councils in Rawalpindi had not as yet been completed, he said.

Afterwards the speaker went ahead with the bill when the law minister asked him to abide by the law (not allow the time-barred amendments), having got it passed expressway. Seeing this the opposition staged a walk out, while raising slogans and tossing in the air the torn copies of the agenda.

Vigorous thumping of the desks by the treasury members was followed by the speedy passage of the second bill and the session was adjourned till Thursday afternoon.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2019