ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Thursday submitted a requisition notice to the National Assembly secretariat, asking Speaker Asad Qaiser to convene a session of the lower house of parliament to discuss the prevailing situation in the country in the wake of coronavirus threat.

The party submitted the notice under Article 54(3) of the Constitution despite facing resistance from within the opposition’s ranks.

The other major opposition party the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) believes that convening the parliament session at this point of time is not a wise move.

PML-N Information Sec­retary Marriyum Ayura­ngzeb told Dawn that the notice had been signed by 92 members, including those belonging to the other opposition parties. She claimed that the notice carried signatures of members of the PPP and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam.

Under the Constitution, the speaker is bound to convene the assembly session within 14 days i.e. by April 3.

PPP opposes move, calls it unwise

Senior PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi at a news conference on Tuesday announced that his party had already submitted requisition notices to the NA and the Senate secretariats for convening sessions of Senate and National Assembly to discuss the coronavirus and other issues in the country.

However, the party later changed this stance and a senior office-bearer declared that the requisition notices had not been submitted so far as they were still busy in obtaining signatures of the required number of members on it.

Sources told Dawn that the PML-N which had 84 members was short of just two members as the assembly session could only be requisitioned by one-fourth (86 members) of the 342-member lower house of parliament. The other major opposition party PPP had categorically rejected the idea of convening the session of any of the house of the parliament.

PPP’s Information Secretary Dr Nafisa Shah, when contacted, again expressed her surprise over the PML-N’s action, stating that she personally believed that it was not a wise move.

Dr Shah said the PPP believed that elected representatives were required to be present among their constituents in this difficult time instead of sitting in Islamabad merely for holding a debate.

When told about the PML-N’s claim that some PPP members had also signed the requisition notice, she said it was possible that one or two members of the party might have signed the requisition notice, adding that so far she had no information about it.

Dr Shah, however, said if the notice had already been submitted then definitely some of her party members would have to attend the sitting whenever summoned by the speaker.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2020