ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) may have to defer its already announced plan to requisition sessions of both houses of parliament due to a cold response from other opposition parties, specifically by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

PML-N chairman and Opposition Leader in Senate Raja Zafarul Haq, when contacted, confirmed that the party had not so far been able to submit requisition notice to the Senate and National Assembly secretariats as it was still busy in holding consultations with other opposition parties.

Senior PML-N leader and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi during a news conference with other party leaders in Islamabad on Tuesday had announced that his party had already submitted the requisition notices to the NA and the Senate secretariats for convening of the sessions to discuss the prevailing situation in the wake of increase in the confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country.

Later, however, the party changed its stance and a senior office-bearer declared that the requisition notices would be submitted in a day or two as they were still busy in obtaining signatures of the required number of the members on it.

Sources, however, told Dawn that other major opposition party PPP had categorically rejected the idea of convening the session of any of the house of the parliament.

The sources said that the PPP, which is ruling the most affected province of Sindh, had conveyed it to PML-N leaders that it was not an appropriate time to convene the session of the parliament. The PPP believes that elected representatives required to be present among their constituents in this difficult time instead of sitting in Islamabad merely for holding a debate.

A senior PPP leader and office-bearer, on condition of anonymity, even criticised the PML-N over this move of requisitioning the sessions of the two houses of the parliament, stating that the party should first request its president and Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif to come back from London, if it considered that the parliament should play a proactive role.

The PPP leader also lashed out at the government for allegedly rendering the parliament a “redundant institution”, stating that it was the responsibility of the ruling party to have discussed the coronavirus issue when it came to surface for the first time due to the presence of Pakistani students in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

On the other hand, PML-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq said the parliament was the best available forum for discussion on any issue of national importance at any time.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2020