New provinces: MQM wins over PPP to block resolution in assembly

Legislators of ruling party and two coalition partners cry foul.


Hafeez Tunio January 23, 2012

KARACHI:


Several MPAs belonging to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and its two other coalition partners felt betrayed when Speaker Nisar Khuhro backtracked on his Friday promise to allow a resolution against the creation of new provinces.


But on Monday the Muttahida Qaumi Movement once again proved its bargaining prowess by compelling the Sindh chief minister and the speaker to ensure that the proposed resolution is not presented in the house.

Around 50 MPAs are signatories to an adjournment motion for the presentation of a draft resolution that calls on the federal government to withdraw support for the MQM bill, seeking an amendment to the constitution. The amendment deprives the present federating units of their mandatory consent for the creation of new provinces.  Out of these 50-plus signatories, 38 belong to the Pakistan Peoples Party, five each to the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional and PML-Q, three to the National Peoples Party and one to the Awami National Party.

Four ministers, Agha Taimur Pathan and Sassui Palijo of the PPP, Shaharyar Mahar of the PML-Q and Amir Nawab Khan of the ANP are among those who put their names to the resolution.

Amid a loud and noisy exchange and heated arguments, pandemonium struck Monday’s proceedings.  Members of different parties shouted slogans in favour of their demands. While the legislators of the PPP and MQM were thumping and vowing that, “no one can divide Sindh,” the NPP and PML-Q kept on pleading for permission to table the resolution.

The session was delayed by three and a half hours as the PPP and MQM leaders had a closed-door meeting. After two-hour long negotiations, the MQM succeeded in taming the PPP while the other coalition partners were left to agitate the issue in the house.

Soon after the question-answer session was over, Masoor Jatoi along with his younger brother Arif Mustafa Jatoi started reminding the speaker about his promise to take up the resolution. “Sir, you had promised,” Jatoi pleaded. “Please give me a chance to move the resolution.” His repeated requests were in vain.

The speaker, freshly emerged from an understanding with the MQM, resorted to dilly-dallying by insisting on the completion of the business on the agenda. “We have to take up the adjournment motion before the resolution,” he said while allowing PPP’s Imran Zafar Leghari to move his adjournment motion on some other subject.

But Leghari, who is also one of the signatories to the draft resolution, argued that his adjournment motion was not that important. “We should give preference to the resolution,” he said.

This annoyed Khuhro who sounded bitter when he told Leghari, “I have [allowed] you to move the adjournment motion.” He said he would not allow any other member to move the motion.

Sindh law minister, Ayaz Soomro, took this opportunity to criticise those who insisted on moving the resolution. “We are sons of the soil and will not let anyone break up Sindh,” he thundered. “Whoever has any such designs will be beheaded.” In an emotionally charged speech, he also criticised the Sindhi nationalist leaders who had come to witness the proceedings for the first time since the PPP came to power in 2008.

As the government refused to take up the resolution, MPAs belonging to the NPP and PML-Q boycotted the session saying, “You are a so-called democratic party. Let us join hands if you are sincere with Sindh.” They then left the house.

MQM parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed was prompted to say that a majority of people in Sindh had come from ‘outside’ the province. “We all have to live in one province, without any discrimination of caste and creed,” he said. “We are not traitors, but among those who love this province. How can we indulge in any conspiracy against our own people?”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24th, 2012.

COMMENTS (28)

Zubaida Abro | 12 years ago | Reply

The assembly will witness another fiasco on Thursday when the session starts. The members of all the parties have chosen their best cards. But there seems to be drop seen as the issue is likely to touch its climax. Jeay Sindh

DevilHunterX | 12 years ago | Reply @Sindhvoice: Please go read some real history books. All ancestors of "Sindhi" were IMMIGRANTS.
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