ISLAMABAD, Feb 22: Political rivals are likely to argue on burning issues ranging from unrest in Balochistan to vagaries of weather when the National Assembly begins a potentially hot spring session on Wednesday after a long cold spell of mixed blessing.

Opposition parties have planned to fire their first shots over the Balochistan situation after the lower house meets at 4pm following a long recess of 119 days.

They are also expected to focus on miseries caused by torrential rains across the country and unusually heavy snowfalls in mountainous areas, which have recharged parched lands but also caused deadly dam-bursts and landslides and widely disrupted communications.

Also on the cards are opposition-sought discussions on recent increases in petroleum and gas prices and occasional sniping on the military presidency as a precursor to an expected stronger show of protest when President Pervez Musharraf addresses a joint sitting of parliament some time next month.

Members of the main opposition groupings of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal have filed about 60 adjournment motions seeking debates on different matters and their parliamentary groups are due to meet separately before the start of the session to chart their course of action.

The ruling coalition, hard-pressed by the Balochistan situation and an embarrassing rift in the Sindh government, is also likely to meet before the session to consider moves to counter expected opposition onslaughts.

Quite a number of adjournment motions relate to Balochistan, seeking debate on separate incidents, including attacks on gas pipelines and other installations.

The government has not announced its legislative plans; parliamentary sources said it is likely to unveil the reports of a parliamentary committee on Balochistan concerning immediate problems of the province as well as long-term issues such as the quantum of provincial autonomy requiring amendments in the Constitution.

Although the government already appeared to have its plate full of worries, one more has been added by the reported detention of National Assembly secretary Mehmood Saleem Mehmood at London's Heathrow airport on Sunday after a woman passenger of a plane bringing them from Washington complained of sexual harassment.

Although the senior-most bureaucrat of the National Assembly secretariat, who was released following an intervention by the Pakistan High Commission in London, denies the reported allegations of harassment and drunkenness, the opposition is unlikely to spare him and may ask for an explanation from the government.