ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: President Asif Ali Zardari discussed with his aides on Wednesday the issue of the 17th Amendment amid reports that the Pakistan Muslim League-N will submit on Thursday a bill to repeal it.
He held separate meetings with Law Minister Farooq H. Naek, Adviser to the PM on Interior Rehman Malik and Information Minister Sherry Rehman.
Sources told Dawn that apart from other parties, pressure had also been mounting on Mr Zardari from within the PPP to surrender ‘politically undesirable’ powers he had been enjoying as president.
The PML-N, the sources said, would not submit the bill to the National Assembly secretariat but hand it over to Raza Rabbani, the Leader of the House in the Senate.
It will be the fifth draft bill to be presented for repealing the 17th Amendment.
The sources said President Zardari desired that a single bill should be tabled in the NA containing the powers he required to rein in the opposition and to maintain his authority.
A senior PPP leader said on condition of anonymity that the government would form a committee on Thursday to discuss all the drafts so that only one consensus bill was presented in the National Assembly.
The PPP sources said that party’s parliamentary committee in a meeting on Tuesday night had demanded repeal of the 17th Amendment. The parliamentarians said that Benazir Bhutto had made hectic efforts for doing away with the amendment.
They are reported to have expressed displeasure over the appointment of some advisers to the prime minister from outside the party.
Presiding over the late-night meeting at the PM House, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that the PPP would negotiate with all political parties which had presented separate bills and those who were planning to do so.
“We want that a unanimous bill should be presented,” he said.
Earlier, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan told the National Assembly that it was the PPP which had initiated the process of repealing the 17th amendment some six months ago when Law Minister Farooq H. Naek had prepared the Constitutional Amendment Bill that was circulated to all political parties.