LAHORE: In a smart move, Punjab Assembly Speaker Sibtain Khan on Sunday prorogued the 41st session of the house continuing for over four months only to convene the next session on an unusual requisition by the treasury members.

The step has apparently been taken to scuttle criticism of the extraordinary long 41st session that had begun on June 15, when Parvez Elahi was the speaker.

He was elected as chief minister and the custodian of the house was also replaced but the incumbent government never thought of putting it off, though sittings of the houses were held after a break of weeks.

Opposition believed that as the governor may not ask Chief Minister Parvez Elahi to take a vote of confidence when the house is not in session, therefore, the government is prolonging the session even though it lacked any worthwhile business.

However, in the wake of raising of eyebrows by many on the unusual long session, the speaker, who had originally convened the meeting, caught the opposition (and of course the governor) off guard by dismissing the session for an indefinite period on Sunday, while calling a new meeting, 42nd, immediately on a requisition by the ruling alliance of PTI and PML-Q.

Usually the opposition requisitions an assembly session by getting signatures of one-fourth members of the house on the application. While the government calls a meeting of the house through the governor on a summary moved by the Law Department, or the speaker has the powers to convene a sitting.

Meanwhile, Speaker Sibtain Khan has notified Hamza Shehbaz Sharif as the opposition leader in the house. The office was lying vacant since the Parvez Elahi government took charge in the month of July through a Supreme Court verdict.

Hamza was opposition leader when PTI’s Usman Buzdar was the chief minister.

However, when Mr Buzdar resigned amid political turmoil in March this year, Hamza became the chief minister in the ensuing polls only to be deposed through an apex court order that declared that the votes of those MPAs who used their right to franchise against the party lines would not be counted.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2022