KARACHI, May 22: The opposition in the Sindh Assembly on Monday asked Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim to step down as he had, according to them, lost confidence of majority in the house. This, he said, has become more pronounced following the MQM MPAs’ decision to stay away from the session.

“There is no legal or moral ground for Dr Arbab to remain in the office of the CM,” said Mr Khuhro while addressing a news conference in his assembly chambers after the session was prorogued on Monday.

Mr Khuhro said that failure of the government was evident from the fact that ministers were not obeying his orders and not attending sessions. He said that this also proved that the chief minister had also lost confidence of his cabinet.

Mr Khuhro said that since the new budget was being presented to the house next month, it was immensely important that chief minister resigned so that Sindh could take a fresh start with a new man. “Dr Arbab lacks vision,” he remarked.

He said that the situation vindicated opposition’s claim that the artificial majority, created through coercion and horse-trading, was in conflict with the democratic norms and would not serve the people of Sindh. He said that because of the manipulated majority, as well as the government’s policies, the assembly was deliberately being made irrelevant by the regime so that it could subvert people’s will.

Mr Khuhro asked: “Why this session was summoned only for two days?” He deplored that this was misuse of the national exchequer.

The opposition leader alleged that the house was prorogued just to avoid a debate on the issues the opposition was going to raise in the house.

He ridiculed the chief minister’s statement that the affected people of demolished goths were being rehabilitated in the resettlement schemes for those affected by the Lyari Expressway Project, pointing out that even those displaced by the LEA project could not be rehabilitated as yet.

Makhdoom Jamiluz Zaman said the chief minister had bulldozed order of the day, including his adjournment motion, just to defuse the criticism against the government.