Opposition benches: After technical glitch, MQM submits second plea

As soon as permission granted, it will summon a session.


Express July 02, 2011

KARACHI:


The Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) lawmakers in the Sindh Assembly once again applied for permission to become the opposition on Saturday.


A joint application filed earlier was suspended by the acting speaker on technical grounds. The party has decided that after it becomes part of the opposition, it would ask for a session to be requisitioned.

They had submitted a joint application to the speaker on June 29 but the Sindh Assembly Secretariat had objected to it, saying that the rules had not been followed. “According to the rule, all members should be signatories to the application, failing which the Speaker cannot allot a seat,” explained Assembly Secretary Hadi Bux Buriro.

He referred to the first application in which only 25 out of 51 members had signed. “There are signatures of 46 members because five members of the party are out of the country and their names have been excluded,” he said.

It is not even possible for a party’s parliamentary leader to move an application. The secretary explained that the assembly’s rules and procedures don’t mention anything about this - it has to be everyone’s signature. MQM’s parliamentary leader in the Sindh Assembly is Sardar Ahmed. He argued that there was no rule making it necessary for all of the members to sign. “I am the parliamentary leader of the party and I had applied for the opposition seats,” he told the media. “The speaker should have made a decision.”

Dr Sagheer Ahmed of the MQM said that as the second largest party in the province, it was the MQM’s right to have its opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly. They are currently deliberating on potential names.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 3rd, 2011.

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