ISLAMABAD: The upper house of the parliament has finally been summoned to meet on Friday (Oct 27) discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The first session of the Senate after the caretakers took up the reins of government at centre in August has been convened by Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani on a requisition submitted last Friday by 44 members of the House--21 Senators from PPP, 16 from PTI, three from JUI(F), two from PKMAP and one each from National Party and Jamaat-i-Islami.

The session has been convened a day after a controversial announcement by the Senate session made by the Senate Secretariat about Chairman Senate’s decision for a session this week raised many eyebrows.

The announcement made no mention of the requisition and its signatories, but did talk about otherwise insignificant letters written by Leader of the House in Senate Ishaq Dar and Parliamentary leader of the BAP Manzoor Kakar to Sanjrani seeking a senate session on Palestine. None of the two any other member from their parties had signed the requisition.

The last session of Senate was held on Aug 9. While two attempts were made by the PPP to convene a Senate session in September, both were blocked through controversial rejection of the requisitions. The Senate Secretariat, in an unprecedented move last month, had rejected a requisition of the house to discuss the Jaranwala violence targeting the Christian community, citing “unmatched signatures” of some PPP members without contacting them.

Another requisition was submitted on Sept 18, but this attempt also failed after five of the six senators from parties other than the PPP, according to the Senate Secretariat, withdrew their signatures from the requisition aimed to discuss “skyrocketing inflation and inflated electricity bills causing grave concern and unrest among the general public”.

A PPP lawmaker while talking to Dawn said the two requisitions had been illegally rejected in violation of the Constitution and the Senate rules. He alleged that the chairman played a biased role by persuading members to withdraw their signatures, using the name of establishment.

He said the support of the PTI this time played a major role in thwarting a conspiracy to block the third requisition.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2023