MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly session, convened on the requisition of the combined opposition on Friday, was prorogued by the speaker shortly after its commencement due to lack of quorum.
The 19-member opposition, of which 12 lawmakers belong to the PPP and seven to the PML-N, had requisitioned the session on Nov 23 to “discuss the situation in occupied Kashmir on the one hand and governance-related issues in AJK on the other”.
However, while two PML-N lawmakers were abroad, another two also failed to make it to the session, prompting the only treasury member in attendance — Minister for Planning and Development Chaudhry Mohammad Rasheed — to point out lack of quorum.
Interestingly, of the two absentees, PPP’s regional president Chaudhry Mohammad Yasin had already informed his colleagues about his unavailability due to his participation in the party’s election campaign for a by-poll in Lahore. However, Nisara Abbasi of the PML-N literally unnerved the PPP legislators by not showing up at the assembly secretariat on Friday, even though she had attended a joint dinner at the residence of leader of the opposition and PPP leader Chaudhry Latif Akbar on Thursday night to thrash out Friday’s strategy.
Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2021
