Opposition vows SC challenge

Wary of the headcount process in parliament during voting on the Elections (Amendment) Bill, 2021, the joint opposition on Wednesday accused the government of trampling all the traditions of a joint sitting and announced to challenge the new legislation in the Supreme Court.

Speaking to the media outside parliament, Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) National Assembly Member (MNA) Maulana Asad Mahmood said that the government had failed to get the required votes in the house.

The opposition leaders spoke to the media after the government achieved a crucial victory in the joint session of parliament, which passed several bill including the bills to grant voting rights to overseas Pakistanis and the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

Read more: Parliament passes amendments allowing EVMs, overseas voting in crucial joint session

“The government failed to come up with 222 members, required for the passage of these bills in parliament,” Shehbaz told reporters “The opposition's votes were counted far fewer than their actual numbers,” he added. “Three or four additional votes were counted in favour of the government.”

Shehbaz charged that the National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, who was chairing the joint session, violated the parliamentary procedure and helped the government bulldoze these bills. “These bills hold no legal value as they were not passed in accordance with the law and fell short of required numbers.”

Shehbaz said that he repeatedly asked the speaker that the legal process was not being followed.

However, he added, the speaker completely ignored all rules and the complaints of the opposition. “The speaker became a tool of the treasury benches to bulldoze these bills,” he added.

Terming the EVMs, ‘evil and vicious machines’, Shehbaz claims that these machines were also rejected by the Election Commission of Pakistan. He added that the EVMs were being imposed on the nation by the government but the opposition will not let that happen.

Also read: Opposition forms committee to challenge constitutional amendments in SC

The opposition will challenge it in the Supreme Court,” the opposition leader told reporters. “The joint opposition will move the court against this undemocratic bulldozing and violation of parliamentary rules and traditions,” he added.

On the occasion, Bilawal said the entire country should know that the government was “defeated today” in the joint session. According to the rules, Bilawal said, the government required more than half of the votes in parliament to pass a bill.

“This means that if there are 342 members in the National Assembly and 100 in the Senate, the government needs at least 222 votes to get a bill passed in the joint session,” he said. “the government failed to muster 222 votes,” he claimed.

“If the treasury benches are unable to cross this number, no law is passed,” he continued. “The opposition’s stance is that no laws were passed today, be it a law for the use of EVMs or giving an NRO to Kulbhushan Jadhav [an Indian spy],” he added, referring to 2007 National Reconciliation Ordinance.

The joint opposition also announced the formation of a committee to mount the challenge to the amendments in the Supreme Court. The committee comprises PPP leader Farooq H Naek, Kamran Murtaza of the JUI-F, and Atta Tarar of the Pakistan Mulim League-Nawaz (PML-N).