With one voice: Govt, opposition join hands to block move to unseat PTI MPs

Dar assures JUI-F will withdraw its motions against Imran’s party

ISLAMABAD:

In a rare show of unity, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the main opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have blocked a move to unseat 28 federal lawmakers of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for absenting themselves from the lower house of parliament for more than 40 days. The move impressed the PTI parliamentarians as they thumped their desks and their central leader Dr Arif Alvi appreciated the gesture of the main parliamentary parties.

As soon as Finance Minister Ishaq Dar spelled out his party’s stance, all parliamentary leaders, barring those from the JUI-F and MQM, threw their weight behind the ruling party. “We support PTI’s presence in the house,” Ejaz Jakharani of the PPP said and requested the MQM to withdraw its motion against the PTI.



Ishaq Dar claimed the JUI-F would withdraw its motion, giving reference to one of his meetings with Maulana Fazlur Rehman. The Maulana was present in the house and Dar had had a brief chat with him before making the announcement. Earlier during the proceedings, the JUI-F chief said he was not convening a meeting of the house committee on Kashmir as some of its members were from the PTI, who didn’t have legitimacy or moral ground to attend the committee meeting.

However, Dar said the chief of the JUI-F, a government ally, has given him an assurance that his party would withdraw the motion against the PTI. Dar said Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has set the deadline of Tuesday [August 4] and he has come up with a reply ahead of it as he was leaving to attend an important IMF meeting abroad.

Recently, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had convened a meeting which was attended by heads of almost all parliamentary parties. The premier made it clear in the meeting that “we want to see the PTI in parliament”. He requested the MQM to withdraw its motion against the PTI so that the matter could not become record of parliament.



Sher Akbar of the Jamaat-e-Islami said his party neither supported the sit-ins nor it would support any such resolution that could hamper national consensus. “Our Ameer Sirajul Haq has played a positive role throughout,” he added.  GG Jamal, a lawmaker representing Fata, said the country was facing economic and energy challenges and there was need to tackle all such challenges together.

Shaikh Rasheed Ahmad of the Awami Muslim League complained to the speaker that “had he tendered his resignation it would have been accepted by the speaker’s office in two minutes”. In a lighter vein, Sadiq first said, “Just in two seconds” and later assured that he would not discriminate against Rasheed or any lawmaker on the floor of the house. “I don’t care about whatever you [Shaikh Rasheed] said outside this house. I’m only responsible for the house business,” he added.

While replying to a call attention notice moved by PTI lawmaker Dr Shireen Mazari and others, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Shaikh Aftab Ahmad said the government would continue its moral, diplomatic and political support to the Kashmiris for their right to self-determination.


Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2015.