Unfinished business: Understanding reached on calling 99th Senate session

Opposition calls off strike amid assurances that remaining items on the agenda will be discussed.


Peer Muhammad November 17, 2013
Senator Raza Rabbani. PHOTO: EXPRESS

ISLAMABAD:


Senators from opposition and treasury benches have agreed to summon the upper house’s 99th session this week to discuss the items that could not be taken up in the previous session due to the opposition’s protest.


The Senate’s 98th session became controversial when Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan submitted allegedly wrong information in reply to a query regarding casualties in terror attacks in the second day of the session.

In protest, the opposition lawmakers had staged mock Senate proceedings outside of parliament for three days – soon after the upper house was prorogued.

They could be persuaded to end their protest only through certain understandings of which one was summoning of a fresh session to discuss the remaining agenda items of the previous session.

“Yes. The government had assured us that another session will be summoned. We’ll contact Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar on Monday in this regard,” said PPP Senator Raza Rabbani while talking to The Express Tribune.



He said they had agreed to assemble the house soon after Muharram. “If the government fails to summon the session, then the opposition will submit a requisition,” he said, adding that they would discuss all the agenda items of the previous session, which could not be discuss due to the controversy.

The main agenda items which were supposed to be taken up in the previous session included a massive increase in power tariff, skyrocketing prices of petroleum products, deteriorating law and order situation, IMF bailout package, treason case against former president Pervez Musharraf under Article 6 and the stalled peace talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq said that it was the government’s prerogative to summon the session and the Senate chairman, who was abroad, would call it.

He said that since Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid led negotiations with the protesting lawmakers, he did not know anything about the understanding the two sides had reached.

“However, whatever the understanding is, we have to summon the session next week,” said Raja. He added that if government did not assemble the house, then the opposition lawmakers also had the discretion to submit a fresh requisition in this regard.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17th, 2013.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ