Govt seeks to woo opposition on FATA, delimitation bills

PM convenes meeting of parliamentary leaders on Friday

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has convened on Friday (tomorrow) an important meeting of the parliamentary leaders of all political parties in a bid to allay opposition’s concerns over delays to the introduction of Fata reforms bill and to forge consensus on the constituencies’ delimitation bill.

The government came under fire from political and public circles after it apparently backtracked on legislation for Fata reforms and did not introduce a related bill in the National Assembly on Monday despite an earlier announcement.

The PM wants to assure the opposition parties that the government is ‘serious’ in the legislation on Fata and that the related bill was not introduced on Monday due to ‘technical’ hitches, according to knowledgeable circles in the ruling PML-N. They insist that the PM is in favour of legislation on Fata and constituencies’ delimitation at the earliest.



A PML-N legislator claims that the government has already decided to reject Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s opposition to Fata reforms. Fazl’s JUI-F and Achakzai’s PkMAP are the government allies which oppose immediate merger of tribal areas with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

“Achakzai’s party has nil presence in the K-P Assembly. Both Achakzai and Fazl parties have a small presence in Parliament.  The views of a tiny minority should not be allowed to influence the will of an overwhelming majority,” said the legislator.

The PM’s scheduled meeting with parliamentary leaders also aims at bringing in the loop the major political parties – the PPP and the PTI in particular – to carry out legislation on delimitation of constituencies which is a must to avoid any delay in the general election.



Recently, there were reports that the PPP wants to strike an underhand deal with the PML-N government to secure some seats in Senate polls scheduled for March 2018 and also to secure some seats from South Punjab in the general election schedule next year.

Reports also suggest that PPP supremo Asif Ali Zardari wants concrete assurances from the government to help his sister Faryal Talpur get elected as next Senate chairman. In return, the PPP would reportedly support the government on the delimitation bill and other political issues.

The Sindh government reportedly believes that the commitments PM Abbasi is said to have made during the meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) last month regarding payment of outstanding funds to provinces and the PPP lawmakers in the NA from the PM’s discretionary quota were not honoured. It was claimed that the PPP was acting aggressively against the PML-N government due to this very reason.



The governments in Sindh and the K-P opposed the proposed legislation on delimitation of constituencies as they claimed that a significant chunk of their population was ignored in the census. They demanded of the PM to convene the CCI meeting to discuss the issue.

During the meeting held last month, the PM reportedly assured Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah and K-P CM Perve Khattak that their reservations would be addressed. Following consensus, the bill on delimitation was passed by the NA but it now awaits the Senate’s nod.

Currently, the government circles claim to have secured support from 60 senators, but for a two-thirds majority to pass the delimitation bill, the government needs 70 votes in the 104-member upper house.

A senior PML-N leader said securing a two-thirds majority in the upper house at a time when the ruling party was faced with serious internal divisions “is nothing less than a challenge”.

“There are dissident elements in our party who are waiting for the right time to leave. I really doubt if all of our 27 senators vote for the bill. Some may abstain from voting and some may skip the related session on one pretext or the other,” he claimed.